With former mortgage broker and real estate agent Po Yuk "Peggy" Chan facing criminal charges stemming from a mortgage fraud investigation, her alleged victims are still liable for paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent mortgages and are turning to the civil courts for relief.Tina Li, left to right, Eunice Chan and Shirley Xialian He all claim that Po Yuk 'Peggy' Chan defrauded them of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Experts say this is the reality with many fraud cases: Even when criminal charges are laid — and even when there's a conviction — the burden lies with the victims to try to recover the money through civil lawsuits. They say the process is challenging, time-consuming and can leave some financially devastated.
She said her friend later told her the purchase wasn't moving ahead. It wasn't until about a year later that Eunice said she received a letter from a lawyer about a $300,000 mortgage on her own property. Instead, He claims that Chan misrepresented the terms of the loan and took out a second mortgage on the purchased home without her knowledge. The 59-year-old said she was forced to sell the home to pay off the two mortgages, was left with about $11,000 and now rents one room in a basement apartment.who shared her story with CBC News in February
Vanessa Iafolla of Anti-Fraud Intelligence Consulting says even when criminal charges are laid in fraud cases, the burden lies on the victim to go through the civil courts to try to get their money back. "I've got one [case] that I'm handling right now [where] the one mortgage alone is $900,000. So when you do the math on all these mortgages, we're talking 10 to 20 million dollars plus," said King, president and CEO of King International Advisory Group in Richmond Hill, Ont.