The practice of delivering certified cheques or bank drafts to lenders to pay off mortgages has been made more difficult with the restrictions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The real estate bar has been asking financial institutions to permit them to pay off client’s mortgages using wire payments in residential purchase and sale transactions.

It is welcomed news that some lenders are implementing processes to receive wires from lawyers’ trust accounts to pay off the seller’s mortgage.

Attached are the payment instructions for:

• Alterna
• Bank of Montreal
• Canada Life
• CIBC
• CMLS
• Equitable Bank
• Home Trust
• Libro Credit Union
• MCAP (also in French)
• Meridian (Put the Meridian member name and mortgage number in the remittance details field of the wire transfer)
• RBC
• RFA Bank of Canada
• Scotiabank

We understand that other lenders are considering setting up wire payments.

We remind lawyers of the Law Society of Ontario’s guidance that permits a wire payment (lawyer sending the funds, see Form 9A), but that an EFT withdrawal from the lawyers trust account is not permitted.