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“I’ve been in this business for over 30 years and this has always been our policy,” he said. “It’s always better to have people come in and look at a property and make a decision on whether it something they are interested in buying and then you can have the conversation about who owns the property and what the specific conditions of that are and the fact it is a foreclosure.”

CMHC has no legal obligation to say in the listing that the property was part of foreclosure and say its only obligation would be if there was an issue like a foundation crack.

If the buyer finds out, absolutely the buyer puts in a low-ball bid

John Andrew, a professor at Queen’s University who specializes in real estate, wonders whether the CMHC has some sort of special responsibility.

“As a Crown corporation, they have a responsibility to encourage good business practices too,” said Mr. Andrew. “The real estate industry is all about transparency and disclosure. That disclosure [about repossession] is a key piece of information. A house that has been foreclosed on is a house that is more likely to have sat vacant for a considerable period of time and probably more likely to have not been maintained well.”

Rob McLister, editor of Canadian Mortgage Trends, said he doesn’t blame CMHC for not disclosing foreclosure information because it means a better price.

“If the buyer finds out, absolutely the buyer puts in a low-ball bid,” said Mr. McLister.

The chief executive of the Québec Federation of Real Estate Boards, Hélène Morand, said last April it was auditing brokerage contracts and noticed there was request that homes that were repossessed not be mentioned on a detail sheet.

“We don’t have any idea if CMHC issued a new rule,” said Ms. Morand. “We were doing quality control and we noticed a new clause on brokerage contracts.”

The Quebec group has agreed that brokers now have the choice to leave blank information about whether a home was repossessed.