Power of Sale and Foreclosure Cleanouts

In Ontario, it is almost always a power of sale

Worth getting the language right, because it changes the timeline you are working to. Most people say foreclosure, which is the American term. In Ontario, lenders overwhelmingly enforce a defaulted mortgage by power of sale under Part III of the Mortgages Act: the lender sells the property without taking title to it. True foreclosure is a court process that vests ownership in the lender, and it is used rarely, generally only where the property is worth more than the debt or where litigation makes a sale impractical.

Practically, that means the files we get called on are usually power of sale, with a sale date rather than a court schedule, and possession obtained before that date. It also means whoever instructs us is usually a lawyer, a mortgage administrator, or a property manager acting for the lender rather than an owner. We are used to invoicing that way and to taking access instructions from someone who has never been inside the building either.

If a tenant was evicted, do not book us for day one

This is the single most common scheduling mistake on these files, and it is expensive to get wrong. Where a residential tenant has been evicted under an enforced Landlord and Tenant Board order, the former tenant's property cannot be sold, kept, or disposed of until 72 hours have passed after the Sheriff enforces the order. During that window the property has to be made available for the tenant to retrieve, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., either in the unit or somewhere safe and close to it.

So a crew booked for the morning after an enforcement cannot legally empty the unit. Book us for after the 72 hours, and if the property has to be moved out of the unit in the meantime, that is a different job from disposing of it.

The rule is narrower than people assume, though. It applies to an eviction enforced by the Sheriff. Where a tenancy ended by notice or by agreement and the tenant simply left things behind, the 72-hour hold does not apply, and there is no equivalent hold on an ordinary owner-occupied property under power of sale.

Pricing a property nobody has been inside

The usual problem on these files is that the person paying has no idea what is in the building. Sometimes the first photographs are taken by a realtor or a locksmith on the day possession is obtained, and they are the only information anybody has.

That is workable. Send whatever photos exist, even partial ones from a doorway, and note in the form that the walkthrough was incomplete. Our estimate is built from an estimated volume range rather than a fixed load size, so an uncertain photo set comes back as a wider range instead of a confident number that falls apart on the day. Where a property is clearly more than one trailer, the estimate says so and prices the trips.

The alternative most operators offer is an hourly rate with an open end, which on a file like this is very hard to justify to whoever is reviewing costs. A range with a stated basis is easier to approve and easier to defend.

What we will not remove without written instruction

On an ordinary residential job, the customer tells us what goes. On an enforcement file, nobody present may have authority to make that call, so we default to caution and ask in writing.

• Anything that appears to be a vehicle, trailer, or anything else with its own ownership record
• Documents, identification, and photographs, which we set aside rather than load
• Safes, lockboxes, and anything sealed that we cannot see inside
• Firearms or anything resembling one, which stops the job until police direct us
• Material we cannot legally take regardless of who instructs us: hazardous waste, suspected asbestos, and biohazard