We have recently purchased a condo in Victoria B.C. I have…

we disclosed the uncertanty of the 1st home owners grant my partner knew she didn't qualify I was uncertain. we told him the reason why.

It was a situation where the township of whistler mountain was releasing govt crown land to a developer for $1. it was a draw for locals only, 85 units were going to be built, it was quite aways away from the start of developing and we were #80 out of 85 we didn't know what size or if we would even be interested in owning what was left over by the time our turn to draw came up. The process was totally unorganized and confusing and took quite awhile to get to the choosing stage, I had never owned anything either did the girl but we went to the bank to see if we would qualify for a mortgage. I was thinking a studio or 1 bedroom The girl I was dating really wasn't interested. After a period of time went by the girl informed me that her mom and dad were putting up $10,000 and we were getting a 1 bedroom (more than 5% down payment) I felt I was cut out of the process and she had me sign a partnership agreement (to protect my interests) I thought that since her parents put the money up It was now in their daughters name. After a few months I moved away and was stil sending my half of the money home and paying rent where I was. She asked me if it was OK to rent out the 2nd bedroom to cover my cost of the mortgage and take the pressure off me, I said yes. She then started going to a lawyer to have the partnership agreement enforced because I no longer was sending my portion of the mortgage home. Nice huh? I never benefited by it there were hurt feelings and all I remember doing was signing an affidavit saying I wouldn't make any further claims on the condo. There are more details but this is the just of what I told all parties involved. This is not something you can sneak by the government that's the reason we were up front about it, we didn't want any surprises. that's why you pay a lawyer isn't it? He didn't do anything except take our money. When we told him about the fine he said that I was talking to a buracrat and to try and go around to the right person but he didn't offer anything more than that. Our Realtor, our mortgage broker and our lawyer all got the same story for the same reason to inquire wether or not I qualified.

It was a 2 bedroom condo I believe it was $110,000 My wife works for the government and if there was a number we could have called or if it was our resposabilaty to call or if the lawyer wasn't going to call shouldn't we have been told? or given the number?

When he said if you make a false claim there could be a fine/penalty we said "that's the reason were telling you this, we want to be up front

He never intimated how much we expected him to make the inquirey

We don't know what a lawyer does to find out things, or what he's supposed to find out. We feel that since we're paying him to protect our interests and we disclosed all the information the only issue was this 1st time owners grant. He should have told us it was our responsabilaty if it is and give us the phone number. At least tell us. Just don't submit it after we gave him the particulars and leave us holding the bag.

After we told him we didn't know if we qualified and he stated that if you made a false claim there could be a penalty, we left everything in his hands we paid him to provide legal services. Our next contact was a notice from the government that we were being charged a fine.

That's it? Please reimburse my $39. and cancel my account. That's just silly.