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Residents of a Brant County subdivision are beginning to wonder if they’ll ever see a $1,500 lot grading deposit owed from the developer who built their homes.
Dawn Laws was under the impression “we had to pay this money in case we made any changes to the property. If we didn’t make any changes to it, then we would get that back within 12 months of moving in,” she told The Spectator.
But Laws said over the past two months, she has emailed Losani multiple times, her husband has visited the sales centre downtown, and she has called “at least eight times” with no response.
She has answered “every single spam call” over the past couple months, hoping it’s Losani.
With no acknowledgment from the company, the couple is at a loss about what to do.
They are on the verge of getting their lawyer involved, out of “principle,” Laws said.
“It’s wrong what they’re doing, because they’ve taken everybody’s money and then it’s earning interest in their bank account rather than ours,” Laws said.
Losani is not responding to The Spectator, either. After acknowledging an initial email, John-Anthony Losani yielded no answers, despite several followups over the past two weeks.
What is a lot grading deposit?
The County of Brant requires builders to submit a grading deposit when their building permit is issued.
Some builders request this from their buyers, others cover it themselves.
The municipality holds the security until the lot grading certification is complete.
The “important” process keeps “your property and neighbouring properties safe from water damage and drainage problems,” according to the county’s residential buildings permit package.
Before it’s final, homeowners aren’t to make changes — like adjusting the laneway, installing a pool, shed, deck or patio.
They’re also warned not to put up fences or landscape until they have the certification, the county’s website says.
The deposit can protect the homebuyer and municipality if something goes wrong, according to real estate lawyer Bob Aaron.
“Sometimes the lot just sinks — it’s normal subsidence … if somebody wakes up one morning and there’s a sinkhole in his backyard, somebody has to fix it,” he said.
In the case of a new build, that responsibility would fall to the builder — as long as the final grading certification hasn’t happened yet.
‘Clear lack of respect’
The couple wanted to share their story in the hopes of getting some action from Losani — but also to get a sense of how many others are affected.
So far, a handful of people have reached out to them — but they expect many more of their 240-plus neighbours could also be impacted.
Like Ruby Guevara, who moved into her home in 2021. She didn’t even realize she was meant to get the deposit back until the Laws posted about it in their local Facebook group, Guevara told The Spectator.
Another, Rebecca McGee, has been there for five years and was going through a similarly frustrating situation. She tried in vain for around a year to reach Losani for the deposit, and last she heard in April 2023, Losani said they were awaiting city engineers to sign off and they would cut the cheque.
She still hasn’t received it.
Down the road, Pavinder Tut said she was told they would receive the deposit back by March 31, 2025.
“Not only has the deposit not been returned, but your continued silence demonstrates a clear lack of respect for your customers — particularly those of us who trusted you with our hard-earned money,” she wrote in an email to Losani.
More frustratingly, she was told by the County of Brant on Dec. 3, 2024, that the municipality was releasing the grading deposits to Losani Homes that week.
“This makes the ongoing delay and absence of updates even more concerning,” her email said.
When asked how much the county returned in deposits to Losani, the County of Brant directed The Spectator to the freedom of information process.
Celeste Percy-Beauregard’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows her to report on stories about Brant County. Reach her at cpercybeauregard@torstar.ca.
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