Mr. Ross Maguire:

Where there is no one to bail one out, as implied by Deputy Higgins, the assignee is saying that if one’s income is such that one can pay a reasonable mortgage, although the assignee technically owns the house, one can continue to pay the mortgage or whatever one can pay. There is no question of his selling the house unless he has to. If the bank wants to gain possession, it must go through all the normal processes. In many ways, it is more difficult to gain possession of someone’s house in bankruptcy than it is in the normal way because the court has all sorts of factors it must take into account that it does not have to account for in the normal course of events. The most important point is that one does not lose one’s house automatically in bankruptcy. According to the assignee, he will do everything to avoid that but, of course, there will be circumstances when a house will be lost. If so, the debt goes with it and one is in a better position than one would have been in.