N Falls

[DRD]

There back!!

[REINV]

By that I assume that they are taking the trash out?

[Pfm1011]

This is just repeated babbling by me if you are a regular.......If you are a newbie you better read this before blowing your brains out in Niagara..

Last fall someone missed or ignored this warning and is now  "partners" with these clowns as they only got half of two piece parcels ...."Enjoy the new partners"


Here is last falls post..the rules apply to the montrose pieces

..--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here we go again with Niagara Falls dumping the Garbage from the Testamentary lots fiasco of the early nineties ( already on Niagara region site)

http://www.niagarafalls.ca/city_hall/departments/finance/tax_sales.asp

This is year three of the dumping and there is at least 20 or 30 more pieces to go after this batch

Senior members know the story but for newbies..put away your check books . I will rehash last years post

Huge sale coming up in Niagara, ...However not one buildable piece in the lot.

These are all illegal lots that were created using testamentary devise( loophole in that planning act that was closed in 1990) The courts ruled these were not buildable lots in accordance to the planning act but they are legal severances in regards to title.

It was quite the scam attempt and very interesting read. Excellent lesson on how NOT to succeed ..  

http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2004/2004canlii21275/2004canlii21275.html

Here are the key points

HISTORY
[3]        Although the Ontario Planning Act of 1983 imposed statutory controls on the conveyance of land by conventional methods, it was silent with respect to testamentary devises, which meant that a testator could devise portions of his real property to different beneficiaries without being required to obtain the prior approval of a land severance committee.  Montemurro used this oversight in the Planning Act to acquire targeted parcels of land which he would then encumber with a charge payable to himself or to a nominee for the entire purchase price.  The land would then be transferred to a terminally ill person for nominal consideration upon the testator executing a will devising the property to nominees or alter egos of Montemurro.  The conveyances were executed in checkerboard fashion to ensure that abutting lots were allocated to different owners thus assuring that they remained separate and marketable building lots.  


[4]        A word about Mr. Montemurros background is necessary.  He had been the founder and operating mind of Astra Trust, a trust company operating in the Niagara Region in the early 1980?s.  The company was closed by the Ontario Government and Montemurro and others associated with him were found guilty of fraud and sentenced to significant terms of imprisonment.  It was after his release from prison that Montemurro turned his mind to the land development scheme that I have previously described.  Because of his reputation and his status as an undischarged bankrupt, Montemurro?s activities attracted wide spread publicity and the Province?s Attorney General took steps in the courts to prevent Montemurro from proceeding with his testamentary devise scheme.  However, in February 1991, Mr. Justice Gravely of this court held that Montemurros scheme of  severance by devise did create title in the various beneficiaries of the devise but that the parcels into which the devised property were divided did not qualify as lots for the purpose of obtaining building permits unless the ?lots? conformed to applicable municipal zoning bylaws.  Gravely J. s decision was upheld by the majority in Attorney General for Ontario v. Montemurro, reflex, (1993) 12 O.R. (3d) 1.  The dissenting opinion of Findlayson, J.A. would have invalidated the entire scheme as a fraud on the Planning Act.
 
This "gentleman" tried this on about 15 farms and created hundreds of lots . They started selling off last fall via tax sales  and probably will keep popping up for the next couple years.

The city of Niagara  fought this and in 2003 won an OMB decision which resulted in all these lands falling under Niagara official Plan 'Special policy area 37"  

http://www.niagarafalls.ca/city_hall/departments/planning/pdf/official_plan.pdf  ( starts half way down page 2-81 and runs for 6 or 7 pages , all not pretty)

Here is my summary from the last Niagara sale , just about sums it up

"The Montrose Rd. ES, is a dogs breakfast . It has been subject to OMB hearings, lawsuits, official plan amendments, special zoning provisions ( not for the good of the owner ) Regional  Flood plain, Significant wet lands,  Environmental assessments, restrictive covenants, a "special policy" (No 37) in the Niagara official plan. The town will  never connect sewers,storm or water etc..Specifically "the city  will not consider  requests" ( Polite for F*ck off)  The property cannot be built on due to frontage which the town "under no circumstances" will allow to vary. Its all in writing. To build , you have to buy 3 additional parcels off the previous owners family who lost the land..Let me know how that works out as they lost the land plus untold hundreds of thousands in an OMB fight which they got slaughtered on.

And to add insult to Injury, when you win the land the 30 parcels ( who cant build) around are going to try to bust your chops when you try to remove the restrictive covenant as I'm sure they want to recover some of their losses and will see it as a opportunity to do so.

It will cost a minimum of 150 to 200K in engineering just to build an outhouse.. need a hydrological study  and environmental assessment for the outhouse. literally "

The more detailed information is that the lots MUST be 200 foot frontage and 2.5 acres.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES can they be smaller.  If you manage to meet the frontage and acreage requirements, then all of the above clauses kick in

In order to build you could buy a few over time and then join them but the tax value exceeds the value of the lots. In addition all of the above problems still exist

If you call the city and ask about zoning , they don't mention the Special policy Area , ( not intentionally, its just you are getting a clerk who simply refers to the zoning map, they might reference bylaw 22-2002 or something like that which is essentially the implementation of Special policy 37)

OK That was last years post,

 what is worse this year is the parcels you could pickup in the future to combine lots to meet the minimum 200ft frontage are already gone . So unless you already have the adjacent land..you are screwed   If you think you can get the adjacent land in the future pull the deed on the adjacent before you bid to ensure there is a tax cert and it hasn't changed hands in the last 15 years

Additionally last year any valuable ones were redeemed as the players in this fiasco are trying to pick up some coin  so they sold the good ones before the sale (for 5k or 6 more then what was owing)

Additionally many  of the pieces have "certificates of pending litigation" which have to be removed  but I understand that they can be removed with some work and a few k to the lawyers

This is a great deal as the end running scumbags who try to do deals around the tax sale...go wild..the actual owners of the sites..are not the owners and the titles are corrupted by old wills.. You will not get clean titles without the tax sale purge as there is a pile of creative  mortgages and executions .

Additionally read the case history and see if you want to do a deal with these people.


The good thing is if you go to Niagara they have a GIS that shows floodplain, woodlots , wetlands etc, use the public / development  screen  of GIS


OK that's part one.....

[DavidJohn]

RE: 5981 Fallsview Blvd, PIN 64348

I'm not sure about this liens. My lawyer told me that there is a lien of $210,192 for this property. The only property that I was interested. I did a drive by on the weekend and it looks scary!! junker cars, broken windws, the street isn't to bad.  Could be buying this one for land value! The MPAC value is only $145 000. Any advise?

[DavidJohn]

RE: 5981 Fallsview Blvd, PIN 64348

I'm not sure about this liens. My lawyer told me that there is a lien of $210,192 for this property. The only property that I was interested. I did a drive by on the weekend and it looks scary!! junker cars, broken windws, the street isn't to bad.  Could be buying this one for land value! The MPAC value is only $145 000. Any advise?

[DRD]

Who holds the lien?

[DavidJohn]

It is registered under James Golden (maple trust).

[netpred]

Hi:

You should read some of the old posts here and you will find answers to many of your questions. The Municipal Act provides that a tax sale deed will have priority over most liens, except those in favour of the Crown.

[Pfm1011]

Willoughby Drive in Chippewa   110K lein to Revenue Canada...Add that to the 13K min and its a pricey piece

[Pfm1011]

RE: 5981 Fallsview Blvd, PIN 64348

it redeemed....