Saskatoon Builders Lien Scam

When I helped anyone prepare a document for court I insisted that they take it to a lawyer before filing it. For under $100.00 the lawyer could advise them. One man told me that the lawyer he showed it to said it was the best non-lawyer court document he has seen. This was nice, but I had many documents prepared by lawyers that asked judges to violate Charter Rights, ask for interest in a manner that was illegal, and others that were out right trash.

A home owner asked me to look at contracts he signed to add a second story to his house. He was a resent newly wed and a student studying for his masters degree in English. I told him that he needed to take the contracts to the Saskatoon Police. The police turned him away at the front desk.

The court scams are easy to spot as the act does not allow the home owner to proceed in small claims court or under part forty of the rules and he must proceed with any court action under the full rules of the court of Queen’s Bench.

The Statement of Claim will ask for the full amount of the building materials and his mortgage lawyer held the mortgage money in his trust account. The caveat prevented him from borrowing money to complete his house and with no roof on the house two major thunder storms flooded his home. I advise him that he needed to find a lawyer and all the lawyers he contacted refer him to the same $300.00 per hour lawyer. I went with him to see this lawyer. He was told that his liability was only 10% of the cost of the building materials but it would cost him $15,000.00 in lawyer fees to proceed to court.

This is where the blackmail ends for most home owners and they borrow money from friends and family and pay up as this is the only way to have the caveat removed. The home owner pays the contractor and is blackmailed into paying the building supplier plus all court costs, interest and pre-trial interest. The homeowner is scammed by the lawyers. When all is said and done it is the Court Of Queen‘s Bench that blackmails the home owners by allowing a caveat on the house and stomping on the home owners Charter Rights of equality by denying them due process and access to the court.

The home owner did not have any money. I explained that I was not a lawyer and that my life time interest in one very small part of law was because I did not have a hockey or baseball player as an idol when I was young, my idol was John Diefenbaker. He knew that I was disabled and that I may not be able to walk and attend court with him and that I was unable to spell or pronounce words properly so he would have to do it himself. He had a degree in English and this would be no problem and he was capable of public speaking that would benefit him well in court.

I offered to help him prepare, serve, obtain and file documents so he could continue with his school studies. He had to have a Statement of Defence prepared and filed within seven days.
When I looked at the Statement of Claim it was not the usual Builders Lien Act scam, it had a third party twist to it. He was being set up for a default judgement and after he was defrauded out of his money and the lien taken off he was going to be served with another action, the lien placed back on his house, and scammed again. I asked him who the third party could be and he had no idea. I found a Garnishee Summons he had forgot about that answered that question.

He drove me around and I talked to the third party and others. I talked to other home owners who received building materials from the building supplier that were included in the Statement of Claim. I discovered that there were 8 cash sales slips for the building materials and the information was copied from the cash slips on to consecutively numbered charge sales invoices. All attempts to obtain accounts receivable records were not successful as they did not exist. The materials were paid for with cash. Attempts to obtain the cash sales slips were not successful. The home owner had paid the contractor for the first phrase of construction and materials and a post dated cheque for the second phrase. He received a call from the city planning department and learned that the contractor was in default of the contract and was known for defrauding home owners. He stopped payment on his post dated cheque just as the first phrase was nearing completion.

All three parties were involved, the contractor, building supplier and the third party and there was no proof with out the documents. The contractor spent the home owners deposit money and had no money to buy the building materials. This would have been the last the home owner saw of him but the contractor wanted the sizable post dated cheque. If the contractor did not start the first phrase of construction the home owner would have stopped payment on the cheque. The contractor who had been scamming home owners for years did not have any credit with the suppliers and he takes the post dated cheque to the third party who has a judgment against him. The third party agrees to pay for the materials and holds the cheque. The third party pays cash for the materials at a building supplier the contractor owes money to and the materials are delivered. The contractor takes his time as he intends to split when the post dated cheque is cashed. This is when the home owner receives the call from the city and stops payment. The third party paid for the materials and with a stop payment he was out his money. The contractor had a history with the building supplier who was cashing cheques for him and obtaining materials for him. The contractor is arrested by the Saskatoon police and charged with other frauds. This was all speculation with out the documents. It is possible that the building supplier realised he was not going to recover the money the contractor owed him if the contractor was in jail and copied the sales slips on to charge invoices adding a few for good measure and was off to his lawyer. I believe that the three con men were a little upset with the home owner stopping payment on the cheque. The garnishee summons was served on the home owner, sales slips were copied on to charge invoices, caveat placed on his house and the Statement of Claim was filed that opened the door for the third party.

A professor at UBC warned his students saying it was very difficult for a lawyer to have his licence to practice law revoked but it was gone if number one, improprieties with respect to the trust account and right up there at number two, file a false caveat.

I helped the home owner with a Notice of Motion to obtain the documents. A lengthy time was given to be near the top of the Chambers list. He received a response to the Motion just within the three day allowed by the rules. At the same time he received the charge invoices and a few other documents and two affidavits, one from the building supplier manager, and one of the lawyers handling his case.

The Chambers judge was Madam Justice ------ and the home owner’s case was the last case to be heard. I stated my name as requested and that I was helping the home owner with the documents. The home owner had no defence to the lies contained it the affidavits and from the lawyer in court. Madam justice -------- and the lawyer started in on him and he looked at me for help and when I started to speak Justice -------- told me to be quite. When the lawyer started telling lies about his wife he became upset and again looked for help from me and I was again told to be quite. The home owner by this time did not know if he should be sitting or standing and asked Justice -------- if he should be standing, she responded in a teasing voice that, yes he should be standing. The home owner was in serious trouble. He was looking at me for help and I was afraid I would be removed from the room if I opened my mouth to help him and he would be in Justice --------s Chamber of horrors by himself. I again tried to interrupt, not to help him but to stop it, Justice -------- could see that he was in serious trouble and I was told to be quite and it continued. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would witnesses anything like what took place in Justice --------s Chambers. I witnessed an assault on a home owner by a judge and a lawyer in the Chambers of The Court of Queen’s Bench. What I witnessed was sickening. It was done to send me a message, this is what is going to happen if you help anyone else in this court. The home owner did not understand what happened to him or why. He was rushed to the hospital in serious condition 3 hours later and he was in the hospital for three weeks.

I did not understand why this was done until after. I did not know that my turn was coming. I received the same treatment in my case in Justice Hrabinsky’s pre-trial court and Justice Dovell’s court. (See The Cooked up Court Order.) and (Justice Hrabinsky’s Pre-trial).

The following morning at the hospital he did not have anything good to say about Justice --------. I met with his wife at the hospital. She only had one concern. She did not care about Justice --------, her house, money, scams, lawyers or courts. The only thing that concerned her was her husband was in the hospital and she wanted him home and well again. She contacted a lawyer and I went with her to see him. When we got to his office he directed her to another lawyer. She was directed to the same $300.00 per hour lawyer that the other lawyers referred her husband to.

The home owner had at some time prior gotten by the front desk of the police station and I called the police officer he had talked to in the past. I explained the situation to him and he kept insisting that it was not a criminal matter. I persisted telling him that a false claim of lien was placed on his house and he was being blackmailed. He called me back and told me he talked to the lawyer. The lawyer told him that the home owner was not in the hospital, I told the officer that I had a letter I obtained from his doctor and that I had filed and served it on the lawyer to stop all court proceedings as the home owner was in the hospital. The lawyer told the officer that he had never seen any cash sales slips, I told him that I had a document with the lawyers signature on it that listed 7 of the 8 cash sales slips and that the document was a Statement as to Documents. The officer asked me why the lawyer would do that and I answered with, because he does not have the mental capacity required to balance a bicycle. This got a chuckle from the officer and this opened the door. He had listened to the lawyer and it was only fair that he listen to the home owner and look at the evidence. It was agreed that we would meet after the home owner was out of the hospital.

The morning we were to meet with the police officer I was waiting for the home owner to pick me up as I am unable to drive . His wife called before he arrived and was very concerned about her husband. I left a message on the officers answering machine postponing our meeting. After he arrived he said he was fine and was begging me to go with him to see the officer. I told him that I could not talk to the officer for him and he needed to do this as the officer needed to see that he was capable of doing this and testifying in court. I asked him to drive us to emergency where he spent the day and I promised to call the officer when he was better.

When we met with the police officer he asked me if I was James Hunter that had been talking to him on the phone. I get this a lot as I do not look like I sound. I have a dystonic tremor, my face is paralysed and at times I am twisted up looking like a dog screwing a football. I got the impression that he thought I was the one that needed help, not the homeowner. The police officer had a copy of The Builders Lien Act and was prepared to show us why the building supplier had a legal right to blackmail the home owner. After looking at the documents and talking to the home owner and seeing that he was more that capable of testifying, he asked if he could make copies of the file. In the following days he asked the home owner for more information and documents. He said that the building supplier manager would just “lawyer up” if he arrested him. The officer called the lawyer who lied to him and they got into a heated argument. The officer was prevented from obtaining a search warrant as the law prevented him from searching a lawyers office for the cash sales slips. The cash sales slips ended up in the hand of the $300.00 an hour lawyer after the police became involved, he claimed he did not know where they came from. The officer sent the file to the prosecutors office with a recommendation to lay charges. This police officer did what the people of Saskatoon paid him to do. He did it at a time when he was being demoralized by editorials and citizens shouting outrages accusations at police officers marching in a parade in downtown Saskatoon. I would not have been surprised to read in the paper one day that one of the many good officers like him had bent one of the editors over, and crammed that discussing newspaper up where the sun doesn’t shine.

The $300.00 an hour lawyer did nothing but take the home owners money. He would not answer letters or phone calls, the prosecutors did nothing. The home owner paid up just like so many other home owners before him blackmailed by The Builders Lien Act and the Court of Queen’s Bench. To this day he has been unable to return to his university studies. He has been left with that bad taste in his mouth like so many others victims of a dysfunctional administration of Justice. The Builders Lien Act was not written by the law makers in Regina. It was written by the $300.00 an hour lawyer’s NDP law firm that the home owner kept being referred to. It is a sad day indeed when police officers are unable to protect home owners from a corrupt administration of justice. It is also a sad day when lawyers are unable to protect their clients for fear of reprisals from their peers and the Justices of the Court.

The lawyers who referred the home owner to the $300.00 per hour lawyer had no choice. Homeowners need to represent themselves or quite likely they will be scammed by their lawyer. It is not that hard to represent oneself. A little help from friends is all that is needed. If it is a clear scam then it is easier as the lawyers are gangsters and not that smart.

The problem is that the Court of Queens Bench has been under attack from the days of Milgaard. Anything that even remotely looks like the court or the administration of justice will be discredited the old "It doesn't matter if Milgaard is innocent... The whole judicial system is at issue- -it's worth more than one person." will be the only consideration of the court. Home owners needs to take witness with them to any chambers application. If the application is left to last in chambers, run like hell or the “it's worth more than one person” attitude of Justice -------- could put them in the hospital for three weeks.

Before her appointment to the bench Justice -------- worked for a lawyer that I opposed being appointed to the bench. Justice ------ was appointed to the bench the same day as Justice --------. It is not a court of law, it is a family of corruption, fraud and deliberate deception where the rule of law is a measurement of ones political affiliation. I have not included the names to protect the homeowner.