The Ontario government is introducing legislation on Monday that will eliminate the ability for people to place Notices of Security Interest or “NOSIs” for consumer goods on the land registry system.
The Homeowner Protection Act, 2024, will also eliminate all NOSIs which are currently in place, which amounts to about $1 billion, according to Todd McCarthy, Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery.
While the new legislation will eliminate NOSIs, there is a lot more to the proposed bill.
The province says there will be a mandatory 10-day cooling off period for the purchase of new freehold homes, public disclosure when builders cancel purchase agreements, and an expansion of the Condominium Authority Tribunal’s jurisdiction over disputes.
McCarthy was at Waterloo police headquarters in Cambridge on Monday morning to announce the new legislation in an effort to protect residents from scammers who had been fraudulently using NOSIs.
“NOSis can be registered on the Land Registry by a business when it rents, finances, or leases certain goods that become fixtures in homes, such as water heaters or furnaces,” he explained.
McCarthy noted that initially businesses were using NOSIs to protect themselves when items such appliances were purchased with financing.
“Over the past few years they have become tools for organized and deliberate deception used to scam hardworking Ontarians,” he explained.
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“Since the early 2000, the number of NOSIs registered on Ontario’s land registry has skyrocketed from around 2,000 each year to more than 58,000 in 2023 alone.”
McCarthy said that in many cases, these are registered without the homeowner’s knowledge and for more money than the product’s actual worth.
“Homeowners usually discover NOSIs when they want to sell or refinance their homes, and then bad actors exploit this by demanding exorbitant fees to discharge them,” he said. “In some instances, multiple NOSIs are registered on a single property, which are later converted into sham mortgages that rob hardworking and law abiding Ontarians of their life savings and their home equity.”
McCarthy and a number of local MPPs were on hand for the announcement and they credited Waterloo police Det. Adam Stover for pushing for the legislation.
“Det. Stover’s efforts have been instrumental in investigating and documenting the harms caused by NOSIs,” the minister said. “It is because of his and the Waterloo Regional Police Service’s tireless efforts that we are here today to take a stand against those who seek to victimize our fellow citizens and residents.”
For his part, Stover noted that some businesses use NOSIs legitimately and will need to find other ways to protect their interests. “This news is going to come with some disappointment to some that are affected by the change,” Stover old reporters. “It’s important to understand that (for) the upstanding companies that were previously utilizing NOSIs as practice, I believe they’ll adapt and they’ll thrive without its use.”
“What the removal of NOSIs does, it eliminates the predators. It serves to remove likely over — and I say this with confidence — over $1 billion that are sitting on Ontario citizens’ titles. It’s going to put that money back into the homeowner’s pocket and remove it from organized crime. Organized crime — they’ve been using these NOSIs and predatory lending to liquidate the equity from our vulnerable seniors homes.”
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