BC Pensioner gets house title restored

The Vancouver Sun proclaims that a pensioner gets stolen house back but that is perhaps misleading.  To be precise it is only the house title that has been restored.  To get to this point has cost Norman Gettel $10,000-and-counting in legal fees.

The Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia wrote: “Further to your story this summer about Norman Gettel, we are pleased to advise you that Mr. Gettel’s land title has been restored in his name.”  So it has taken over six months to correct this since the Vancouver Sun headlined the story and almost a year since the LTSA was advised there was a problem.

According to the property records, Gettel sold his property, assessed at $600,000-plus in the summer of 2007, and the buyer had also immediately put a $400,000 mortgage from CIBC on it.  The buyer never showed up to claim the property.   The identity cards used to get the property transferred included a B.C. driver’s licence and a B.C. CareCard.

Gettel had no idea that his property had been transferred to someone else until his annual property assessment didn’t arrive in the mail.  When he went to the land titles office, he was told he didn’t own the property any more.

The nightmare isn’t over for Gettel with a $400,000 mortgage against the house and his legal fees so far of $10,000.  He expects the provincial Land Title Office will be dealing with the CIBC which holds the mortgage. I hope he will not have to get involved in the mortgage case as Stan Rule describes in another case of Land Title Fraud.

Dave Watt, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver wrote to the Vancouver Sun back in the summer of 2008 pointing out re Title Fraud in B.C. that title insurance protects the lending institution, not the homeowner.  He said that  REALTORS® have a high level of confidence in the land title system.

That may be so, but it has still cost Mr. Gettel a great deal of time, money and heartache to get this title fraud corrected. It should be easier than this.  It is perhaps the most grievous example of what can happen in an identity theft situation.

Footnote: If you are interested in books on Real Estate, then why not visit the Real Estate section of the Money Bookstore.

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