EquityLine: one mortgage found forged, seven more still contested

Two men visited her on numerous occasions, her family says, telling the widow that fraudulent liens had been placed on her property. They persuaded her to put $20,000 into a class action that would remove them. On June 2, 2022, $273,040 was briefly deposited into her bank account; the men, the family says, told her it was a $250,000 award from the class action, to be spent on renovations they would arrange, and convinced her to write two cheques to two entities "for $125,000 for home repairs." The money, in the affidavits of her daughter and son-in-law as the receiver summarizes them, was the proceeds of a $335,000 mortgage registered against her home on May 27, 2022, in favour of Computershare Trust Company of Canada as custodian for EquityLine SPV Limited Partnership, per the Third Report, Sept. 19, 2025, ss. 2.1(1), 2.4(4)–(8), 3.1. In March 2025 Justice W.D. Black described her as a widow in her mid-70s who lives alone, per the Endorsement of Justice Black, Mar. 24, 2025, para. 2.

On November 26, 2025, with no one objecting, Justice Jessica Kimmel wrote that "the court accepts and adopts the Receiver's determination that the instruments relating to the [mortgage] are forgeries, and so finds," and signed an order directing their deletion from title, per the Endorsement of Justice Kimmel, Nov. 26, 2025, para. 7. It is the one mortgage of eight contested in the EquityLine SPV receivership on which a court has made that finding. The claims of the other seven fall under a mortgage adjudication protocol approved on April 30, 2026, per the Sixth Report, June 12, 2026, s. 3.0, para. 3. On July 24 Justice F.L. Myers added EquityLine SPV GP Inc., the partnership's general partner and legal title holder, as a debtor, per the Endorsement of Justice Myers, July 24, 2026, paras. 1–3.

A warehouse vehicle with every loan in default

EquityLine SPV was the special purpose vehicle of the EquityLine Group, which brokered, financed and managed residential mortgages. Under a credit agreement dated August 5, 2021, Equitable Bank provided a revolving facility of up to $25 million and funded up to 80% of the first mortgages and 50% of the second mortgages, the balance coming from the group's mortgage investment corporation, listed, the receiver says, on the Jamaica Stock Exchange. Computershare held legal title as custodian, the partnership the beneficial interest; EquityLine Services Corporation administered the loans. Sergiy Shchavyelyev was the principal, per the First Report, Oct. 2, 2024, ss. 2.1–2.3.

Justice Jana Steele's endorsement appointing a receiver over the partnership's opposition, released July 30, 2024, records more than $10 million owing to the bank as sole secured creditor, defaults on interest and principal, and three mortgages discharged without the bank being paid, which Mr. Shchavyelyev's affidavit put down to "an accounting error." The partnership argued a receiver would be cost prohibitive for loans mostly under $1 million, per the Endorsement of Justice Steele, July 30, 2024, paras. 2–3, 5, 12, 16. The order appointing KSV Restructuring Inc. is dated and effective July 30, 2024, per the Endorsement of Justice Kimmel, Aug. 7, 2024, para. 7.

KSV's first report counted 25 mortgages with an estimated book value of $11.8 million, against approximately $10.1 million owed to the bank. All were in default, and the receiver understood that 20 had not been serviced in over a year. Mr. Shchavyelyev had told the receiver that four borrowers alleged fraud; after reaching 14 of the 25 borrowers, the receiver had eight, "four more than previously identified." The report also said he had disclosed the diversion of $1.6 million in mortgage repayments to the investment corporation, which had not returned the funds despite repeated demands, per the First Report, s. 1.0, paras. 2–4; ss. 3.2.2(3), 3.2.3(2), (4)–(5). By June 12, 2026 the portfolio was 19 mortgages with an estimated book value of $8.6 million, per the Sixth Report, June 12, 2026, s. 1.0, para. 2.

Eight homeowners, and the first finding

In the receiver's summary, the eight claims are generally similar. The homeowners, or people related to them, allege that individuals attended "without solicitation" at the homes of certain elderly homeowners and, through allegedly fraudulent acts that in some cases included allegedly forged signatures, induced them to agree to charges on their homes, purportedly to finance home-improvement services allegedly unnecessary or not provided, or to discharge notices of security interest for home comfort equipment. "In some cases, the elderly homeowners were impecunious or otherwise vulnerable," per the Fourth Report, Jan. 5, 2026, s. 2.1, para. 4. The eight mortgages total just over $4 million, averaging $501,875 each, per the Supplement to the Fourth Report, Mar. 30, 2026, s. 3.0(1)(e). Two of the eight eligible mortgagors the protocol lists are estates, per the Order of Justice Myers, Apr. 30, 2026, Sched. "B".

The widow's claim reached the court in March 2025, at a scheduling appointment convened at her request. An enforcement action had been brought against her in Computershare's name, which Computershare said it never authorized, and in July 2024 she sued to have the mortgage struck from her title; the receivership stayed both, per the Endorsement of Justice Black, paras. 2–8. The receiver opposed her motion to lift the stay and proposed a process inside the receivership. Under the terms she and the receiver agreed, recorded in Justice Kimmel's May 13, 2025 endorsement, the receiver would decide within 60 days; a decision to discharge would bind all parties, and a decision not to could be challenged in court, per the Endorsement of Justice Kimmel, May 13, 2025, paras. 1, 5–7.

A certified questioned document examiner, in a sworn report dated February 13, 2023, had concluded that her signature was forged on five documents, among them the acknowledgement and direction authorizing registration of the charge and the mortgage commitment agreement. The partnership, through its counsel, said the mortgage should be enforced: there was no evidence its own lawyer was aware of or should have been alerted to any fraud, and it was entitled to rely on the documents and directions provided by the lawyer who, on the file, acted for the homeowner. The receiver recommended deletion as a "fraudulent instrument" under the Land Titles Act, while stating that it was "unable to determine, at this time, that the Debtor was knowingly involved in or aware of the circumstances of any fraud," per the Third Report, ss. 2.4(12), 2.5(1)–(3), 3.3, 3.4(1).

TitlePLUS, which insured the mortgage, asked at the October 6, 2025 hearing for time to consider its position. The adjournment came on terms the parties agreed after the hearing: the homeowner could sell or refinance meanwhile, with the net proceeds held in her lawyer's trust account and the mortgage attaching to them. The court was sympathetic, Justice Kimmel wrote, to her need to sell "to enable her to eventually move into assisted living," per the Endorsement of Justice Kimmel, Oct. 15, 2025, paras. 5–7.

The deletion did not close her file. In a report dated June 12, 2026, filed in the original enforcement action, the receiver said that action should not be dismissed on her motion. The order rested on a finding that her signature was forged; there was no finding, the receiver says, on whether she nonetheless benefitted from the funds advanced and is liable under the doctrines of equitable mortgage and subrogation, and dismissal would leave any such claim likely statute-barred without a decision on the merits. It asked that the action continue in its name under the protocol, which she was eligible for but not required to join, per the Sixth Report, s. 1.0, para. 7; s. 2.1, paras. 7–8; ss. 3.0(4)–(6), 4.0. No ruling on that request is in the record read for this piece.