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EAST ROYALTY, P.E.I. — A woman from Cardigan, P.E.I., has been fighting for almost a decade to recover her family’s land and home that she says were stolen.

In 2011, Manuela Proenca’s family bought a plot of land with a house on it, known to most locals as the purple house, in East Royalty on the corner of St. Peters Road and MacRae Drive.

In February of 2013, Proenca’s granddaughter, 19-year-old Nadia Marques, applied for a mortgage to build a new home on the piece of land on the outskirts of Charlottetown.

As Marques was only 19, Proenca and Marques’ grandfather, Domingos Marques, were asked to guarantee the mortgage.

In September of 2013, the family moved into the new home despite it not being finished, as they needed to be in the home by the time school started, said Proenca.

However, Proenca alleges issues with the quality of the build immediately began showing up.

“All of the hard tile floors began cracking and lifting up,” she said. “It all started cracking because the cement for the foundation wasn’t poured properly. There were no plans or inspections done on the foundation.”

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Due to the issues with the foundation, frost was able to get into the walls and floors of the house, eventually causing moisture and structural damage over the three years they were there, said Proenca.

“It was not safe to be there,” she said. “There was mould all over the place, all over the walls, and we were breathing it all in.”

The house had been built by Do All Home Improvements, owned by Wally Bambrick, who had been recommended to Proenca’s granddaughter by her lawyer, Ewan Clark, who worked with Cox & Palmer, said Proenca.

In December 2014, Bambrick brought the family to court over not receiving the remaining $15,150.11 for the construction of the house. Bambrick had won the initial court case, in which the family was ordered to post security for $18,000, but Proenca’s family appealed the order.

In a 2018 written decision, Justice John Mitchell said the motion judge erred in justice when placing the order and granted the appeal.

In the decision, Mitchell agreed with the original judge, who said the counterclaim against Bambrick for issues surrounding quality of workmanship was valid.

He also noted two reports that were not referenced by the original motion judge. One was a lab report confirming elevated counts of mould in the house, and the second was a report from James C. Johnson Associates Inc., which stated that the repairs needed to make the house habitable again would include completely removing and repouring the flooring slab.

Other issues were discovered in the house as well, such as incorrect and unsafe wiring of outlets and fixtures in the kitchen and a broken and incorrectly installed in-floor heating system, said Proenca.

A SaltWire Network reporter toured the home with Proenca at that time and confirmed the state of the house.

By August 2016, Proenca said the family was forced to leave the house due to health and safety concerns. However, the issues with the home were only the beginning of the troubles the family would face.

According to a 2019 Prince Edward Island Court of Appeal decision, when the family left the home, the National Bank of Canada said they stopped paying the mortgage.

Soon after, in March 2017, the bank foreclosed on the mortgage and took ownership of the house.

To stop the foreclosure, Proenca and her family took the bank to court, alleging the bank had been responsible for inspecting the work on the home in order to advance payments from the mortgage to Bambrick. She alleged the bank’s neglect to properly inspect the work led to the damage that caused them to leave the home when it became unsafe.

“There were no inspections done on that house,” Proenca said. “Even when you look at the documents, the photos they used for each visit were the same, there were no inspections done.”

In their court case, Proenca also alleged the bank, her family and the contractor responsible for building the house had all been represented by Clark at the time the deal was made to build the home, creating a conflict of interest.

The family initially lost that court case but appealed the decision and took the case to the P.E.I. Court of Appeal.

The outcome of the appeal was no different, though. In the 2019 appeal decision, Justice John K. Mitchell found there was no proof that Clark had represented all three during the mortgage deal. He also found the bank was not responsible for inspecting the build quality of the home.

“The Bank's letter of instructions to the solicitor stated only that advances would be made in accordance with construction work progress reports certified by the inspection conducted by the Bank's appraiser,” said Mitchell in the decision. “The obligation of the Bank's appraiser was to provide the Bank with a construction progress report, not a report on the quality of the construction. All the Bank's appraiser had to do was certify at what stage of progress was the construction.”

Following the appeal decision, the bank took ownership of the home, and the family was left to pay the cost of the appeal – $500.

However, Proenca said she doesn’t agree with the decision. She said the property, which the family had owned previous to the mortgage, still belongs to them.

When speaking with SaltWire Network in April, Proenca said the bank took the land as collateral to cover the cost of the unpaid mortgage, as the house held no value due to the damage.

However, Proenca alleges the mortgage for the new home was never completed, as their lawyer hadn’t supplied the bank with any documentation. She also alleges a new document that was missing signatures was given to the bank, and a new loan with a different loan number was created months later.

Due to this, Proenca said the bank owes her family the land as well as a new home, as their former home, the purple house, was torn down without their permission in preparation for the new construction.

“We want to get back what was stolen from us. The land, the house that they destroyed, the last nine years of our lives we’ve been dealing with this. What we want back and what my family wants is what was ours to begin with.” — Manuela Proenca 

Currently, her former new house is being used as a rental unit by the current owners, said Proenca, and was on the market for sale in March 2022.

SaltWire Network met with Proenca outside the house in April. While not allowed inside the home, on the outside, various patch marks along the concrete slab of the home could be seen where attempts to repair the cracks had been made, indicating it had not been replaced.

Proenca said she contacted the sellers of the home previously and explained its past condition to them. She said she also reached out to the Canadian Real Estate Association about the house, noting that many of the listings for the house had incorrect information and did not state the issues with the structure or foundation.

One listing for the house on Zillow said the home had been built in 2010 and was well-maintained. No mention of the foundation or structural issues was included.

Proenca said CREA would be investigating her claims against the sale of the house, but she has yet to hear back from the association. As of Aug. 2, the house is off the market.

Regardless of the court decisions, Proenca will continue fighting to get their property back, which could involve trying to bring criminal charges against those involved, she said. However, that has yet to happen.

“We want to get back what was stolen from us,” she said. “The land, the house that they destroyed, the last nine years of our lives we’ve been dealing with this. What we want back and what my family wants is what was ours to begin with.”

Cody McEachern is a reporter with the SaltWire Network in Prince Edward Island. He can be reached by email at [email protected]  and followed on Twitter @CodyInHiFi. 

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