Housing NWT forgives mortgage debt that caught Whatì woman by surprise
CBC
Balance owing: $0.
That was on the second page of a recent letter Jacqueline Williah got from Housing NWT last week regarding the mortgage owing on her house in Whatì.
"I just want to scream and yell, I'm so excited," Williah said.
The letter is drastically different from the one Williah received after her late husband died in 2021. That's when Williah says she was first informed about a mortgage on the house — a home she thought she owned outright for close to 30 years.
Williah moved into the three-bedroom home along the shores of Lac La Marte with her husband in 1994. The couple split up in 2010 but Williah remained in the house with her family, which had grown to six children and three grandchildren.
It was after her former husband died in the fall of 2021 when Williah got a letter from Housing NWT informing her of a mortgage with more than $141,000 owing.
At the time, Williah was devastated as she said she never signed any papers and it was her understanding she owned the house.
But now, according to the letter from Housing NWT, the house is officially mortgage free as all the debt under the Independent Housing Program has been deemed "fully forgiven."
"I can just cry," Williah said.
A Housing NWT spokesperson said rental and mortgage arrears are reviewed annually to "determine if any of those files meet the criteria for forgiveness."
Referencing a debt forgiveness policy from 2016, the document states all debts owed to a government or public agency may be forgiven, in whole or in part, after all reasonable efforts have been made to collect the amounts owing.
Earlier this year a motion was passed in the legislative assembly to forgive elders' mortgage and rental debt, brought forward by Monfwi MLA Jane Weyallon Armstrong.
It was part of a reconciliatory review of Housing NWT's collection approach.
In the motion, Weyallon Armstrong asked Housing NWT to forgive all arrears that cannot be collected for elders and residential school survivors, and requested a collections policy and strategy be developed going forward.
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