Homeowner horror - bungalow stolen in rising wave of title fraud
“My sense of security in Canada is gone” says Paul Reviczky, who learned about identity theft the hard way
Excerpt from an article by Harold Levy - Toronto Star
With files from Associated Press
An 89-year-old man has been left both heartbroken and betrayed after his North York bungalow was stolen from him in the rising wave of title fraud.
Paul Reviczky, who fled Hungary in 1957 to escape Communist persecution, is one of the latest homeowners to discover that Ontario law favours banks, mortgage companies and purchasers over victims of fraud.
“I was shocked to learn that this could be the law in Canada,” Reviczky says. “I fled Hungary to escape lawlessness like this and now my sense of security in Canada is gone.”
Gerry Phillips, Ontario’s minister of government services, vowed yesterday to change the land-registry system to protect homeowners like Reviczky from title fraud.
Reviczky purchased the property at 220 Sheppard Ave. W. in 1980 for $67,500 to generate a rental income that would help pay for the education of relatives back in Hungary.
The retired tobacco farmer, who came to Canada 49 years ago with his wife Ilona and his then 3-year-old daughter Marietta, says he felt so strongly about his duty to help out the family he left behind that he specified in his will that the property could not be sold after his death because the income was to be used for their support.
Since his wife’s death in February 2005, he has lived alone in his home a few kilometres from the rental property.
Reviczky could not believe his ears on June 26 when his neighbour, a real estate agent, told him she had noticed on the computer that he had sold his rental property in May.
“So I went back to my office, got the record from the computer and showed it to him,” Vivian Ho told the Toronto Star. “His face turned red and I was worried that he was going to have a heart attack.”
Police believe Reviczky’s most recent “tenants” forged his name on a power of attorney that purported to give a grandson named “Aaron Paul Reviczky” authority to sell the home on his behalf.
“I don’t have a grandson named Aaron,” Reviczky says. “I don’t have any grandsons.”
On May 15, “Aaron Paul Reviczky” sold the property on his behalf for $450,000 to a purchaser named Pegman Meleknia, who took out a mortgage of $337,500.
“I did not get the proceeds,” Reviczky says.
Reviczky’s lawyer, Tonu Toome, says it was “very painful” to have to break the news to Reviczky that he may lose his house forever — even though he was an innocent victim of fraud — because Ontario law recognizes the transaction as valid where the purchaser is unaware of the scam.
“I had to tell him that although he would ultimately receive financial compensation for the loss of his home, this would entail legal fees and an application to Ontario’s Land Titles Assurance Fund, which could take several years,” Toome says.
Says Reviczky: “I want my home … not just some money.”
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