Tax Sale Guide Home
Cancelled Auctions
Chapter: GENERAL QUESTIONS
Frank
In fact (in Ontario at Least), municipalities are required by legislation to serve notice on all lien holders prior to a sale. Unless the property is severely impaired there is no way the banks are going to let it go for the taxes owing - they will either make a deal to increase the amount of the mortgage to pay the taxes, or they will forclose on the mortgage they have, evict the owner and sell the property themselves. Mortgage companies will only walk away if the property is worth less than what they have outstanding or what they think they can get by going through the motions.
The City of Hamilton, for example, currently has a sale underway (it will probably be in the gazette this weekend). When first advertised it had 22 properties listed, and eight of these have been cancelled
go to:
http://www.myhamilton.ca/myhamilton/CityandGovernment/CityDepartments/CorporateServices/FinanceBudgetTaxes/PropertyInformationTaxes/TaxSaleProperties20060509.htm
These people either came up with the money, or made a satisfactory payment arrangement, and the Municipality has deemed that it is financially not in its best interest to proceed with the sale. They do not want to throw people out of their homes, and they use the process to get them to come in and pay-up. In all but a few of these situations this works, and what ends up going to sale are properties that are in truly bad condition (generally), however, you do get the odd jewel that sneaks through and is worth bidding on.
Hamilton doesn't advertise in the Gazette until it has done the local advertising routine (4 weeks) in a local paper. The reduces the number of the last minute cancellations which we see in other municipalities, however it leaves folks like us with very little time to investigate the properties. When you see a tax sale advertised and it is not going to occur for a month and a half, then you could expect that a number of properties will be cancelled from the sale, - you should check the status over the phone before bothering to go and do your investigation. Don't leave it until the last minute, but if you start too early there is high probability that will waste a lot of time and money.