High River flood victim tired of camping in his driveway

Richard MacDonald knows the first thing he looks forward to doing, whenever he has a house again.

"Getting back to my showers and having my running water so I can do most of my cooking and all that here instead of having to go all over the place

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And the second thing he'll do?

"These are going,  I'm selling them."

MacDonald is referring to the two holiday trailers parked in his driveway. One belongs to MacDonald, the other to his son, Ian. The two were living together when the flood struck in June 2013. Thankfully, the 50-year-old says, they've had each other to lean on throughout this ordeal.

"The two of us have been sticking it out," says MacDonald. "There have been times we've been wanting to throw in the towel."

MacDonald's bungalow had to be torn down after being damaged on two fronts: overland flooding and a burst town water pipe. By January 2014, MacDonald got an insurance cheque for nearly $53,000 to rebuild.

First signs of trouble

As required, MacDonald signed over his insurance cheque to his lender, to be held in trust until he was ready to rebuild. MacDonald also qualified for provincial disaster recovery money for items that weren't insurable and other expenses. That totalled about $100,000. Turns out the lender wanted to hang on to that money too.

"I sensed trouble about a year and a half ago when they wanted the government cheque. They demanded it, they said that was their money," says MacDonald. "The person on the phone was real nasty, matter of fact he argued, yelled and screamed, and hung up on my ear."

MacDonald doesn't want to publicize the name of the lender because he's now hired a lawyer to negotiate on his behalf, and he fears any progress will be lost.

'It's not your money to take'

But his mortgage broker, Yousra Jomha,  says she feels a responsibility to speak out. She's been in this business for more than 19 years. She's become friends with MacDonald ever since he first walked into her High River office looking for a mortgage five years ago. She says throughout this ordeal, MacDonald has never missed a mortgage payment, yet the lender is still making it difficult for him to move on and rebuild a home.

"Now Mr. Lender wants Richard to fork over the DRP (disaster recovery program)  money. It's not yours, stop the bullying, it's not yours, it's not your money to take," says Jomha.

MacDonald says he can only guess why the mortgage lender is playing hardball.

The way it looks, they (the lender) don't want us to rebuild because I'm on the flood fringe. They're afraid of it happening again, so I figure they want to pull out."

Clock ticking on donation

MacDonald says he's managed to scrape together enough money to rebuild with the use of savings, the insurance money, the DRP money, and a $15,000 donation from the charity, World Renew, to go towards excavation costs. But he's just been told the company is leaving town at the end of August, and their offer may expire then, too.

"If I don't have it resolved in next three weeks, I lose their donation and then it won't be enough to put it up," says MacDonald. "

But ever since MacDonald hired a lawyer, he's felt more optimistic a settlement might be reached fairly soon. He's hoping to be back in a house by winter. But if not, he plans to take it to court.