If you take one practical action from anything here, make it this: ask your lender for a written payout statement. Every option — selling, refinancing, reinstating, working out whether you have equity at all — depends on knowing the real number, and it is almost always higher than the balance showing on your statement.
What goes into it
- Principal outstanding — the balance you already know about.
- Accrued interest — interest that has built up and not yet been paid, which keeps accruing daily.
- Arrears — the missed payments themselves.
- Legal costs incurred to date — once a lender has instructed lawyers, those costs are generally added to what you owe. They grow with every additional step.
- Administrative and enforcement fees — as permitted by your mortgage documents.
- A prepayment charge, sometimes — depending on your term and how the payout arises.
Which is why the figure surprises people. The gap between "I am three payments behind" and the actual payout number is often considerably larger than three payments.
Payout versus reinstatement
Two different questions, and worth asking for both. Payout is what it takes to clear the mortgage entirely — the number a sale has to cover. Reinstatement is what it takes to bring the mortgage current and carry on as before, which is normally much smaller.
If reinstatement is achievable, it is usually the cheapest path back to normal. If it is not, the payout figure is the number every other plan is measured against.
Getting it, and using it
Ask in writing and ask for it in writing. Note the date it is calculated to — it changes daily as interest accrues, so a statement from six weeks ago is not the number today.
Then set it beside two other figures: everything registered against your title, and a current opinion of value on the property. Those three together tell you whether you are protecting equity or managing a shortfall, which are entirely different situations with entirely different plans.
Questions people ask
General information about the Alberta foreclosure process — not legal or financial advice, and nothing here guarantees an outcome. Every file is different.