Edmonton Auction Cancelled ... What Gives??

[RobG]

Okay, I admit, I'm a total newbie at this. I saw an ad in the Edmonton Sun a couple of weeks ago stating that the City of Edmonton is having a real estate auction April 20 to sell off over 50 properties.

So I go down to city hall at the advertised date and time (April 20 10 am), the woman at the tax desk informed me that the auction had been cancelled. I asked why, she said that all of the property taxes had been paid!! Then she said that there wouldn't be another auction until next year.

Then she said that only 5 homes were up for auction. I really don't understand ... how is it that 50 advertised properties become 5 properties, and the auction will be suddenly cancelled without warning?

Is this common? Is there another way to purchase homes by paying the taxes, besides going to the auction?

What a big waste of time this was!

[Rob]

Hi RobG,

Is this common?  Yes, many property owners suddenly come up with the money right before their home goes to auction.  Plus Edmonton's a hot property market, so that allows people to get a bigger mortgage to pay off those taxes.

If Edmonton is not listing any more properties until next year, why not try another community in Alberta?  There are listings all year long .

In Alberta thats how the process works.  Each province has slightly different rules. 

[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.

[3]

Just want to say thank you to Frank, the administrator and the rest who took their time and explained different aspects of the tax sales.  I learnt a lot from this site.

To all the newbies: if no one replies your questions, they (your questions) might have been discussed before and it is really easy to find what you want to know by reading past postings.