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Court rules Urbancorp buyers must pay own legal bills

September 1st, 2016  |  Canadian Business

After housing developer Urbancorp filed for bankruptcy, prospective home owners who put deposits down on cancelled properties need to fight in court for their homes.

And while the situation definitely isn’t their fault, what with the buyers paying as much as $15 million to Urbancorp, the buyers are still being told they’ll need to pay for their own legal fees if they want their interests represented as Urbancorp restructures. Hibusiness reports that Urbancorp’s lawyers made the case that the estate funds shouldn’t be used to advance the interest of parties not aligned with the estate’s goals.

That means the buyers will be on the hook for $150,000 in legal bills. After paying thousands of dollars already for their deposits, some buyers like Loraine Adal-Salmon, who together with her husband put down $80,000, aren’t sure how long they can keep paying the legal fees as they have no idea how much of that money they’ll see again.

Many of the prospective buyers are hoping to negotiate with companies interested in buying the lots to at least guarantee that they can live in the homes they wanted. The court did at least allow the buyers to be represented by the Dickinson Wright law firm so there’s some hope they can negotiate a good enough deal to cover both their lost deposits and legal bills, but right now there are no guarantees and very little support on their side.