August 7, 1985

West

| Canada's Number One
47 Suburban Newspaper

AND WEST VANCOUVER

News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 — Circulation 986-1337 44 pages 25¢

ancouver hit —
by real estate scam |

along on
windboards
PAGE 13

Housing help : 9

education
PAGE 22 —

A REAL ESTATE scam that can burn the un-
suspecting home vendor has reared its head on the

North Shore.

| By TIMOTHY HAW |

A source within the local
teal estate industry, who
wished to remain
anonymous for fear of vio-
lent reprisal from the
suspected perpetrator, told
the News that the scam has
the potential to leave the
vendor with an unsold house
and a year’s unpaid mor-
tgage payments.

The real estate source says
the scam involves the pro-
spective purchaser of a
house offering the vendor
the list price of a house,
usually one that has been on
the market for some time.

The purchaser then makes
a smali down payment,
assumes a new unspecified
first mortgage, and asks .the
vendor to take out a second
mortgage to make up the
purchaser's temporary equi-
ty shortfall. The purchaser
then promises ta repay the
second mortgage within 60
days at several percentage
points above the bank rate.
With the property signed

- AWEIGH

’ ICEBREAKER Martha: Louise Black,. built:for @.
the Canadian Coast Guard, was launched Fri- |
day in North Vancouver at Versatile Pacific
Shipyards, formerly. Burrard Yarrows. Cor-
poration. The $56 million Arctic Class 2
icebreaker is 90 per cent Canadian content,
with its main engines from Montreal, its elec-
trical generators from: Peterborough and its
Canadian-made steel. Construction began on
the 274-foot long ship in June 1984, and work
on the vessel employed an average of 320 men.
The diesel—electric navigational aids vessel has
BY 8,440 horsepower and can travel at 15.3 knots.

over to the purchaser and or
his respectable-sounding
nominee, the buyer proceeds
to rent it out or use the
property for collateral, but
neglects to make the agreed
morigage payments. After
three months both the origi-
nal owner and the new
owner on paper are notified
of the commencement of
mortgage foreclosure ac-
tions.

Legal maneuvering
subsequently begins and
paperwork is then dragged
through the courts. The
original owner must then
begin foreclosure action
against the purchaser and
pay the defaulted mortgage
payments in order to keep
his home.

Det. Ted, Johnston of
West Vancouver police says
the legal proceedings can take
up to nine menths, in which
time rent money is collected
by the house purchaser. The
house, he adds, eventually
winds back in the hands of
the original owner who is

See Housing
Page 3