If you have been served, free legal help in Alberta starts with Legal Aid Alberta and community legal clinics. If the wider problem is debt, credit counselling in Alberta helps, but only a Licensed Insolvency Trustee can file a consumer proposal or bankruptcy. For housing help in Alberta, 211 Alberta routes you to what exists locally, free and around the clock.
Nobody hands you a list when the letters start arriving. Most people in Alberta end up phoning the wrong place twice before they find the right one, and the weeks that costs are weeks a foreclosure does not give back. This is who actually does what.
Free legal help in Alberta
Searched most often as free legal help Alberta, and the honest starting points are these.
Once a Statement of Claim has been served there are deadlines attached to it, and they do not move because nobody explained them. If paying a lawyer is not realistic, free legal help in Alberta does exist: Legal Aid Alberta handles those who qualify financially, and Student Legal Assistance and community legal clinics take some matters that fall outside it. Ask early rather than at the deadline, because intake takes time.
What we cannot do is act as your lawyer or tell you what to file. We are an education and referral service, and on anything that has reached the court a lawyer is the right person.
Credit counselling in Alberta
Usually searched as credit counselling Alberta. The distinction below is the one that matters.
If the mortgage is one symptom of a wider debt picture, credit counselling in Alberta is worth a call before the foreclosure decides things for you. A non-profit credit counsellor will look at the whole position rather than this one account.
One distinction that matters and gets blurred: a consumer proposal or bankruptcy can only be administered by a Licensed Insolvency Trustee. LITs are federally licensed, the first consultation is almost always free, and if anyone other than an LIT offers to file a proposal for you, that is the moment to stop and check.
Housing help in Alberta
Searched as housing help Alberta, and it is a different system from anything to do with your mortgage.
If the likely outcome is that you will be moving, housing help in Alberta is a separate system from anything to do with the mortgage, and it has waiting lists. Alberta's rent assistance programs and municipal housing services are the starting points, and 211 Alberta will route you to what exists in your area by phone, text or web, free and around the clock.
Applying early costs nothing and does not commit you. Being on a list you did not need is a far better position than needing one you are not on.
Financial help in Alberta while you work it out
Short-term financial help Alberta is patchy and mostly local.
Short-term financial help in Alberta is patchy and mostly local: emergency funds through municipalities, utility hardship programs through the utility itself, and food supports that free up cash for the mortgage. None of it solves a foreclosure. All of it can buy the few weeks that a sale or a refinance needs to complete.
Who we are in this list
We are not any of the organisations above and we are not paid by them. What we do is explain how an Alberta foreclosure works and give you a straight read on your options. If the answer is that one of these services is the right call rather than us, we will say so.
Free help in Alberta
These are independent organisations. We are not connected to them and we are not paid to list them.
- Legal Aid Alberta — 1-866-845-3425
- Money Mentors — 1-888-294-0076. Alberta non-profit credit counselling, and the Orderly Payment of Debts programme — an Alberta-only court-ordered consolidation option
- 211 Alberta — 211. connects you to local financial and housing supports
If a consumer proposal or bankruptcy might be part of your situation, speak to a Licensed Insolvency Trustee. They are the only people licensed to advise on it.