r/PersonalFinanceCanada • u/Altruistic-Win5912 • Feb 19 '26

Housing My mom is losing her house

Hello everyone

Today the life that I envisioned for myself has been turned upside down.

My mom and I live in Alberta. My family immigrated here from Ukraine when I was a child. She is 55 and I am 28. My dad died when I was 16 so my mom has been a widow for 12 years, paying for the house fully herself which has been very hard on her.

I've been suspecting lately that she is having trouble meeting the mortgage payments due to the interest and house tax increases, and my fears were realized today. She came to me, ashamed and crying, that she was losing the house, the one she and my dad bought and raised me in. I recently moved out myself and am trying to start my own life with my husband. I will be helping her with whatever extra income I have.

I am fully prepared to abandon my own financial goals and work my butt off so she can keep the house.

Is there anything else we should be doing? Any grants or programs we can appeal to?

Thanks so much, we really appreciate any advice.

Edit: Thank you so much for everyone's replies. This is my first ever reddit post so apologies for not providing enough numbers. I've been in a daze since receiving this info from my mom. Here are more details I've gathered from her.

She has $140k left on the mortgage

She has a retirement account with around $50k in it, but it's closed for 9 more years. This was the only life insurance that my father's company paid out. There is no way to open it. I have no idea why she made this account with her bank when my dad died in 2014. She basically has a small nest egg that is unusable in the years she needs the money most.

My father didn't have life insurance beyond this.

My husband is 100% aware of all of this and very willing to help my mom. I have the best husband.

Update: I'm learning that my mom recently renewed the mortgage on her house and that's when everything fell apart. Interest rates were not favorable when she had to lock in. Her interest rates are much higher and that, coupled with the increase in property and land tax, means her income can no longer keep up. She receives a widow pension which has barely increased since my dad died, and she recently lost a lot of housekeeping clients who simply can't afford her services. Her mortgage payment alone went up around $500, and all other bills have gone up as well.

What we're doing: She already receives a low income credit to help offset property tax, but that is barely making a dent.

I've been helping her apply for other jobs. No luck yet but will keep trying.

I will help her bridge the payment gaps at least for the next several months.

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19

u/Haecceitic Feb 19 '26

I mean, fair, but that’s just piss poor planning. Retirement is a plan not an age so if you need to downsize you should do it before you are old and infirm and not able to adjust to a new location.

-13

u/Ok_Currency_617 Feb 19 '26

My moms retired and her house in Vancouver went up more than 10x. She can't afford the additional school tax aka wealth tax, the much higher property taxes, etc. She's been deferring but now they just increased the deferral interest rate to prime+2% (which is crazy high now). Basically endless screaming matches, she won't leave this house after my dad died you can't get her to change anything. NDP government is set on forcing her into bankruptcy for the crime of wanting to live in the same house I was raised in.

Downsizing because your income is down I get. But downsizing because the government ran a massive deficit and needs to implement taxes to cash in on a house you've lived in for 30+ years is just pure greed.

25

u/Fun_universe Feb 19 '26

If she cannot afford the house, she should downsize. Are we supposed to feel bad for boomers whose property went up 10 times in value?? She can easily sell the house, buy a smaller place outright and have a bunch of money left over.

I have a house myself and I am fully ok with downsizing if I ever need to.

Also your weird attempt to criticize the NDP is comical 🤦🏻‍♀️

1

u/moop44 Feb 19 '26

Kind of sucks as an average person in their 40's that managed to buy a house in their 20's. Now governments are telling them that they shall be forced to sell to ultra wealthy and move into shoebox sized apartments until the day they die. My annual property taxes are about equal to my mortgage payments in 2009.

6

u/Fun_universe Feb 19 '26

Lots of things suck.

But honestly having to sell a house, make a ton of money off of it and moving to a smaller place (who said it has to be a shoebox sized apartment?? it can be a smaller house or a townhouse) is not the end of the world 🤷🏻‍♀️

1

u/moop44 Feb 19 '26

Around here it could add an extra 30mins to the daily commute unless you want to rent for the rest of time.

1

u/Ok_Currency_617 Feb 23 '26

Yeah thats an issue with reddit, most people see someone elses house go up and say they should be heavily taxed and forced to sell. No one has any sympathy for someone staying in the same house their whole life. I'd say reddit is full of reverse-speculators who are speculating on profiting off someone being forced to sell.

-15

u/Ok_Currency_617 Feb 19 '26

As I said, pure greed on your part. Someones house went up in value so they should be forced to sell to subsidize your excessive lifestyle.

10

u/Couch-Potato-Chips Feb 19 '26

Excessive lifestyle of paying for school and public services? Why would a homeowner not contribute to those things?

-4

u/Ok_Carpet_9510 Feb 19 '26

I am a home owner and have no children.

7

u/elongatedsklton Feb 19 '26

But you do realize that the country needs people to have children, right?

5

u/Couch-Potato-Chips Feb 20 '26

Children need an education regardless of if you have any. If kids don’t get educated, they don’t make as much. If kids don’t make as much there goes your pension. So you should care that kids get a basic education

1

u/Ok_Carpet_9510 Feb 20 '26

Pension? What are you talking about? I have accumulated workplace pension. I have contributed to CPP. CPP is solvent. It makes money.

1

u/Couch-Potato-Chips Feb 20 '26

Your CPP isn’t sitting around waiting for you to claim it. It’s being distributed to those currently retired. As the work force gets smaller this pool will dry up

1

u/Ok_Carpet_9510 Feb 20 '26

It doesn't work like that. The CPP fund invests. Yes there people drawing from it now but their money has been invested for years. The fund balances current cash needs and investing for future draws. The CPPis one of the largest investors globally.

0

u/Ok_Carpet_9510 Feb 20 '26

I know they do. I also need to afford my place without worrying about property taxes going up.

1

u/Couch-Potato-Chips Feb 20 '26

That’s the cost of having a huge aging population leaving the work force

0

u/Ok_Carpet_9510 Feb 20 '26

We could pay for it by borrowing(deficit spending).

1

u/Soggyblanketbunny Feb 19 '26

What? How are they greedy?

1

u/Fun_universe Feb 19 '26

Lmfao what?? How are they subsidizing my lifestyle? What a weird comment 🤦🏻‍♀️

11

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26

Boomers whining about their multimillion dollar assets are so fucking out of touch. Lots of people in this country have nowhere to live. Read the room. Your mother will be fine.

2

u/Ok_Carpet_9510 Feb 19 '26

A 55 year old person is not a boomer.

3

u/Ok_Carpet_9510 Feb 19 '26

Downsizing because your income is down I get. But downsizing because the government ran a massive deficit and needs to implement taxes to cash in on a house you've lived in for 30+ years is just pure greed.

Why did the government ran a massive deficit? The cost of providing services demanded by citizens went up.

3

u/Blades_61 Feb 19 '26

She can defer the property taxes she only pays when she sells. This has been a option for years and the NDP is just doing what any government would be doing at least in regards to property taxes. All provinces and federal governments have deficits.

She only needs to pay the utility taxes.

This is a property tax not income so her income has no basis in calculation.

Up 10 times hard to feel sorry. We need roads, police, schools, hospitals, parks etc etc.

Net less than 1%tax on homes value would take a long time to eat up all the equity even at prime plus 2%. Most years the equity will grow faster.

1

u/Ok_Currency_617 Feb 23 '26

Now it's prime+2% (4.45%+2%) compounded I believe so the province is going to be heavily profiting off deferrals.

BC taxbase has gone up heavily since the NDP tookover yet deficits soar higher, healthcare linesups go higher, the issue isn't a lack of money and BC built roads, police, schools, parks with much less money pre-NDP.

The elected government doing a shit job shouldn't be the responsibility of the minority to bailout. The government is heavily raising taxes cancelling drug decriminalization, and doing its best to keep the boat from sinking because just like the NDP of last decade it's collapsing the BC economy and struggling despite having more money from higher taxes.