A story of eviction and solidarity

It is the story of a “somewhat special” 67-year-old woman evicted and dispossessed of her own condo for a debt of a few thousand dollars.

But it is also a story of solidarity between neighbors and of reconquest.

In the neighborhood, everyone has already seen Galina Pourguina. For 30 years, it has circulated in this same quadrilateral at the limit of Outremont and Mile End. She speaks French, but her mother tongue is Russian, and sometimes we see her in the street chatting alone in Russian. Or shout. She doesn’t harm anyone, but she has “mental health issues.”

On June 21, returning from a walk, she saw bailiffs emptying her apartment. People put his furniture in a truck. We are busy changing the lock.

Galina Pourguina has lived there for over 30 years, and has owned it since 2002.

What was going on?

It happened that in 2019, the other owner of his condo syndicate, Normand Latourelle, one of the co-founders of Cirque du Soleil, had obtained a judgment declaring him the owner.

Because the building belongs two-thirds to Fiducie Latourelle, and one-third to Mr.^me Pourguina.

So how can a co-owner take over the other’s condo?

By registering a legal mortgage for non-payment of condominium fees. Then by going to court for “forced abandonment” and becoming the owner of the condo – as a bank does in the event of mortgage default.

Like M^me Pourguina never understood what was going on, let alone the risks she was running, nor did she understand that she had to appear in court.

A default judgment was rendered in 2019. Everything was recorded in 2020… but the pandemic broke out. And it was not until June 2021 that the new “owner” evicted Mr.^me Pourguina.

The woman, divorced and without a family, ended up at the Old Brewery Mission, in a dormitory.

This is where the people from the Mobile Legal Clinic found it, an organization that helps homeless people defend their rights.

Lawyer Helena Lamed, a former professor at McGill University, put together the case for her. And last week, a rare occurrence, a judge ordered a “retraction of judgment”.

Judge Marie-Claude Rigaud, of the Superior Court, clearly outraged by the maneuver, writes that the Normand Latourelle trust “took advantage” of the precarious state of its co-owner to “seize” his building.

On Friday, the lady returned to her empty house, after five months in her refuge. She is still there, moreover, while waiting for the household and the reinstallation of the furniture to be done at Latourelle’s expense, as ordered by the judge.

After years of somewhat complicated relations, Latourelle sends in 2017 a series of formal notices for unpaid common costs dating back to 2009. A bailiff is sent, but no one answers the door. A second time: same thing. Ten letters are slipped under the door. No result. Until the final formal notice, claiming $ 9,632.

The law allows a “legal mortgage” to be entered in the event of non-payment of common costs; and this mortgage allows a recourse in forced abandonment, that is to say the taking of possession of the building by the creditor.

Neighbors will not soon forget this dramatic day of June 21. Bailiffs. Policemen. Social workers.

“It still moves me a lot,” a neighbor told me, who did not want to be named.

“Galina is a character in the neighborhood. She doesn’t talk much, she is suspicious, but she told us everything that was going on, she walked a lot in the neighborhood. We always greeted each other. ”

As the furniture came out of the apartment, the police asked her if she could accommodate her neighbor, who had nowhere to go. She said no. Social workers saw that she had mental health issues without being threatening. They directed her to Mackenzie Hall.

But every day, for the past five months, Galina had come back to her street.

“I set up a small table and chair for her in my hallway. I received his mail. I washed his clothes. She spent time there while I worked. Sometimes she would have fits, but I would say to her: “Keep it down, I’m working!” She was listening. ”

In the evening, she returned to her dormitory, to come back the next morning.

“Here, it’s his whole universe. I said to him: “You have to think of a solution, if you do not win your case.” Quite frankly, I never thought she would win. She told me she would go back to Russia.

“To this day, I am still shocked. He took away all dignity. ”

Several neighbors got involved in the affair, to help Galina.

“When I knew she had found her key, I was crying like a madeleine, I was so surprised and happy for her. In all honesty, I am still moved. I can’t believe anyone did this. ”

Normand Latourelle is in California and did not have time to speak to me. His lawyer, Sacha Vrkic, spoke for him. Let’s be precise: M^e Vrkic is the lawyer for the syndicate of co-owners, which is made up of Mr.^me Pourguina (1/3) and Fiducie Latourelle (2/3).

He explains that all these aggressive legal steps were not aimed at stripping Mr.^me Pourguina, but to force her to respect her obligations, not fulfilled “for decades”.

He found at trial that she was in a precarious mental state, but could not assume so, he said.

“There was no way to communicate with her, no email or phone, and she was not answering the door. It’s a relationship that was difficult from the start. It’s a very unfortunate situation, but we had no other options. What could we do? Normally, people react to formal notices, to a summons to court, to a judgment, he argues. Here nothing happened.

“The objective was not to put it on the street, but to offer it the municipal value of the building”. That is, $ 569,000.

He insists: it was not a question of taking advantage of his vulnerable situation to make a profit, as suggested by the judge. The proof: they did not take any action after the expulsion.

It must be said that the legal clinic was in the file as of July to obtain the annulment of the first judgment …

No other options, really?

The judge clearly disagrees. Social services or the Public Curator could have been involved before evicting the co-owner, sending her to the street and dispossessing her… for a debt of $ 10,000.

No other option but to put her on the streets, really?

What would have happened if the mobile clinic had not organized its defense? She did not have the psychological or financial means to go to court.

“Has the excuse of unpaid common expenses been used to try to evict a vulnerable person, who may not be taking care of his building as we would have liked and who had behaviors that could disturb ? », Asks the judge.

It looks a lot like that.

For lawyer Helena Lamed, the judgment reiterates that we have an additional obligation when dealing with a precarious person, to avoid abuse under the guise of defending our rights.

The other moral of the story is that without people willing to give their time to right injustices, economic inequality leaves the Galina of this world no chance.

“We have balanced economic strength with our time; access to justice, that’s it, ”says Helena Lamed.