BY ROWAN SMITH, CITY WIDE MORTGAGE SERVICES
(AN INDEPENDENT MEMBER OF DOMINION LENDING SERVICES)
CMB MAGAZINE cmba-achc.ca fall 2017 | 29
taintedproperty
S
o, your client has finally found her
"dream home." It's located in the perfect
neighbourhood, right in the school
catchment she was hoping for, and
has all the space and rooms to accommodate her growing family. Better yet,
it's within her budget. e only catch: twelve years ago, the house was busted as a marijuana
grow operation (a.k.a. a "grow op").
You call your top few lenders and find out that this is a major problem for them. No one
seems to want to finance a home that was previously a grow op, despite the fact that it has been
lived in for the last 12 years by two different families, sans cannabis. Clearly, the last two buyers
had no issue getting financing, so what changed? Why have the banks stopped lending on them?
e problem dates back several years, and the reason banks don't want to finance them
is part stigma, part science.
Banks have gotten
nervous about financing
houses once used as
marijuana grow ops –
but that doesn't mean
your client's dream home
has to go up in smoke
Seeds
of Doubt
