What is the test for establishing that a disguised mortgage is not a real mortgage?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Bankruptcy of Faber and Faber, 2007 BCSC 496 (CanLII):

In Gill v. Dhillon, [1989] B.C.J. No. 752, Mr. Justice Legg stated at p. 6: The First Action I accept the submission of counsel for the defendant that the first question to be decided is the nature of the 1982 agreement and, in particular, whether it was a sale of the motel with a lease-back and an option to repurchase or whether the original agreement was a disguised mortgage as contended by the plaintiffs. I also accept counsel’s submission that where it is claimed that the true nature of an agreement which purports to be an agreement of purchase is in fact a disguised mortgage there must be cogent evidence to rebut the presumption that the documents state the nature of the agreement. In Wilson v. Ward, 1929 CanLII 40 (SCC), [1930] S.C.R. 212 Duff, J., stated at page 217: “Even where the instrument in question professes fully and clearly to give the reasons and considerations on which it proceeds, collateral evidence is admissible to show that the transaction is not thereby truly stated, although in such cases, only the most cogent evidence avails to rebut the presumption to the contrary.” The documents in the case at bar are unequivocal in describing the agreement as a sale with an option to the plaintiffs to repurchase. There is nothing in them indicating that the parties understood the agreement to be in the nature of a loan. Further, there is an absence of cogent evidence that the true nature of the agreement was a disguised mortgage.

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