Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Enforcement of a second mortgage over four Ontario properties where the principal advance, borrower’s default, and contractual interest calculations under the mortgage were largely undisputed.
• Defendant’s repeated attempts to delay or stay the lender’s summary judgment motion, found to be an abuse of process and akin to res judicata in light of prior rulings by multiple judges.
• Allegations that the mortgage was invalid due to the lender’s licensing status and an alleged familial relationship between the lender and the mortgage broker, ultimately rejected as unsupported in law or evidence.
• Disputes over interest, fees, and accounting for payments resolved by reference to the mortgage terms, prior judicial determinations, and an updated payout statement crediting all acknowledged payments.
• The defendant’s failure to advance a viable defence on the merits, including not commencing or joining a third-party claim or amended pleadings to the summary judgment motion record.
• A substantial full-indemnity costs award of $73,000 against the defendant, justified by a pattern of unreasonable litigation conduct, missed timetables, and duplicative motions.

Background and parties
The case arises from a secured lending relationship between individual and corporate lenders and a residential/commercial borrower. The plaintiffs, Sam Folino and Inet Lending Corp., acted as the lenders and moving parties on a motion for summary judgment. The defendant, Merium Shahid, is the borrower and registered owner of four Ontario properties located in Milton, Niagara Falls, and Oshawa. The claim is brought in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, where the plaintiffs seek to enforce a second mortgage and obtain judgment for the outstanding debt and related remedies.

The mortgage transaction and default
The central instrument in dispute is a second mortgage granted by Ms. Shahid in favour of the plaintiffs. The mortgage principal was $425,000 and was advanced on June 15, 2023, and secured by four properties standing in the defendant’s name. The mortgage terms provided for interest and various fees typical of private, high-risk mortgage lending. Although the endorsement does not set out every clause verbatim, the court repeatedly refers to “the terms of the Mortgage” as the contractual basis for interest and other charges. The defendant did not dispute either that she executed the mortgage or that the principal amount was advanced. Nor did she dispute that she fell into default on January 16, 2024. The plaintiffs also paid out a prior first mortgage in favour of Vault Capital Inc. on the Niagara Falls property; an earlier order by another judge confirmed the plaintiffs’ entitlement to recover that payout amount from the defendant as part of the overall indebtedness. An updated mortgage payout statement was placed before the court on the summary judgment motion, reflecting accrued interest, court-approved components such as the prior Vault Capital payout, and credits for approximately $74,000 in payments made by the defendant during the litigation. The court accepted this payout as accurately implementing the mortgage terms.

Procedural history and litigation conduct
The litigation progressed in a way the court characterized as unusually protracted and procedurally contentious for a debt enforcement action. The plaintiffs issued their statement of claim on May 31, 2024, and the defendant delivered a statement of defence on July 2, 2024, without a counterclaim at that stage. An early endorsement in June 2025 from another judge (Kurz J.) confirmed the plaintiffs’ right to recover the sum they had paid to discharge the first mortgage in favour of Vault Capital in relation to the Niagara Falls property, effectively resolving a significant component of the claim. Shortly thereafter, on June 13, 2025, the plaintiffs served their motion for summary judgment. In July 2025, a timetable order was made by Mills J., expressly permitting out-of-court cross-examinations on both sides in preparation for the motion; no party ever took up that opportunity, and no cross-examinations occurred. The hearing of the summary judgment motion was scheduled on November 20, 2025, for March 9, 2026, giving the parties ample lead time. During this interval, the defendant and her counsel brought multiple further motions that the court ultimately regarded as duplicative and abusive. In February 2026, Associate Justice Glick heard a motion by the defendant to amend her pleading and issue a third-party claim against the mortgage broker, based largely on allegations that the broker and the individual lender were brothers and that this relationship undermined the mortgage’s validity. Associate Justice Glick allowed a limited amendment and the third-party claim to proceed but dismissed most of the relief sought, noting that similar relief had already been refused by other judges and warning against inconsistent verdicts and abuse of process. In early March 2026, just days before the scheduled hearing of the summary judgment motion, Mills J. dismissed an “urgent” written motion by the defendant seeking a stay of that motion. Justice Mills held that the issues raised mirrored those already disposed of by Associate Justice Glick. Despite that ruling, the defendant’s counsel filed yet another urgent motion on Sunday, March 8, 2026, again seeking to stay or adjourn the summary judgment motion. On the morning of March 9, 2026, defence counsel renewed the request orally, seeking either a stay or an adjournment. The motion judge (Conlan J.) refused, noting the matter was effectively akin to res judicata in the interlocutory context: the same parties, same relief, and same issues had already been decided more than once. The judge went so far as to describe the repeated efforts as an abuse of process.

Defence strategy, third-party claim and appeals
A central theme in the court’s reasons is the defendant’s failure to meaningfully advance her proposed third-party claim and defence in a timely and procedurally proper way. Although Associate Justice Glick had permitted a third-party claim against the mortgage broker to proceed, that claim had not actually been commenced by the time of the summary judgment hearing. Nor had the defendant delivered a fully amended pleading or taken steps to join any third-party issues to the summary judgment record. Instead, the defendant appealed Associate Justice Glick’s order, initially to the wrong forum—the Divisional Court, rather than a single judge of the Superior Court—as such orders are typically interlocutory. While the defendant’s counsel asserted that this procedural irregularity had later been cured, no supporting material regarding the perfected appeal, its grounds, or any hearing date was placed before the summary judgment judge. The defendant also tried to argue that the main action should not proceed to summary judgment until the third-party claim was decided, contending that issues of broker conduct and the alleged family relationship between broker and lender should first be litigated. The court held that this approach inverted the proper order of proceedings: even if the third-party claim were ultimately successful, it could only, at best, yield indemnity in favour of the defendant against the broker; it could not legally entitle the defendant to retain her properties free of the plaintiffs’ mortgage judgment. The court emphasized that there is appellate authority permitting summary judgment in a main debt recovery action to proceed before determination of related third-party claims, particularly where the defendant has not joined those third-party issues to the motion record. In this case, not only were the third-party issues absent from the motion record, the third-party claim itself had not yet been commenced.

Substantive defences and challenges to the mortgage
On the merits, the defendant advanced several substantive attacks on the mortgage and on the plaintiffs’ accounting, but the court found each one unsustainable on the motion record. First, the defendant suggested the mortgage was invalid because the lenders allegedly lacked proper licensing. The court rejected this, noting that the lending arrangement had been arranged through a mortgage broker, and the defendant’s argument failed to address the broker’s role or produce any authority showing that any licensing deficiency by the lender alone would invalidate the mortgage as between these parties. Second, the defendant claimed the mortgage was tainted because the individual lender and the mortgage broker were allegedly brothers. The court held that this did not, in law, invalidate the mortgage: the lender did not owe a fiduciary duty to the borrower, and any family relationship between lender and broker may well have benefitted the borrower by enabling the advance in the first place. Counsel for the defendant admitted an inability to find a single Canadian authority supporting the proposition that such a familial relationship renders a mortgage invalid. Third, the defendant disputed the calculation of interest and certain fees as excessive or improper. The court accepted that these items were contentious in her factum but concluded that the interest was calculated precisely in line with the mortgage terms, and that some of the larger disputed fees fell into categories either no longer claimed (for example, a $42,500 fee the plaintiffs chose not to pursue) or already adjudicated in the plaintiffs’ favour by a prior court (for example, approximately $567,978.31 linked to earlier orders). The remaining fees were again found to be authorized by the mortgage contract. Finally, the defendant argued that the plaintiffs had failed to credit some $74,000 in payments made after the commencement of proceedings. The updated payout statement filed by the plaintiffs contradicted this assertion, and the court accepted that each of those payments was fully credited.

Summary judgment framework and the court’s analysis
Applying the summary judgment framework under Rule 20, and guided by the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Hryniak v. Mauldin as interpreted in prior Ontario authorities, the court focused on proportionality, efficiency, and the need for a fair and just determination without trial. The motion judge emphasized that there is no genuine issue requiring a trial when the record permits the court to make necessary findings of fact, apply the law, and reach a reliable conclusion without resorting to a full trial. In this case, the evidence was straightforward on the core elements: the mortgage existed; the principal was advanced; the defendant defaulted; relevant prior cost and fee determinations had been made; and the plaintiffs’ payout statement credibly showed the outstanding indebtedness net of credits. The judge did not find it necessary to use any expanded fact-finding powers such as weighing conflicting affidavits or conducting mini-trials, because the record, taken at face value, already demonstrated that there was no viable defence. The court also stressed that the parties are presumed to have put their best case forward at the summary judgment stage. Here, the defendant’s strategic choice to withhold her written argument from the online court file (in the hope of forcing an adjournment) backfired. The judge nevertheless insisted on reviewing that factum, had it printed, and considered its arguments in detail, then invited extensive oral submissions from defence counsel. Even with those indulgences, the court found no evidence-based or legal basis that could justify a trial.

Costs, writs of possession and future procedural steps
Although the court granted summary judgment in favour of the plaintiffs, it made two adjustments to the draft judgment tendered by their counsel. First, the court struck out language that would have immediately authorized writs of possession for the four properties. The judge required updated occupancy reports to ensure that any possession orders would properly take account of who is actually residing in or occupying each property. The plaintiffs were granted liberty to bring a written “basket motion” for leave to issue writs of possession once those reports are obtained, with the motion to be directed back to the same judge. Second, the court fixed costs of the motion at $73,000 on a full-indemnity basis, representing the scale of costs contractually provided for under the mortgage. The judge slightly reduced the figure to the nearest thousand but otherwise upheld the plaintiffs’ costs outline as fair, reasonable, and proportionate in light of the defendant’s repeated, unsuccessful efforts to delay and complicate the litigation. The court noted that multiple outstanding costs orders already existed against the defendant, that she and her counsel had not complied with timetable orders, and that the pattern of duplicative stay and adjournment motions constituted an abuse of process.

Ruling, remedies and overall outcome
In the result, the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, ordering judgment against the defendant for the full outstanding mortgage indebtedness and related amounts as set out in the plaintiffs’ draft judgment, including the principal sum of $425,000, accrued contractual interest, and approved fees and prior payouts, all net of credited payments. The endorsement itself does not state a single combined dollar total for the debt component, so the precise aggregate judgment figure cannot be determined from this decision alone. However, the court expressly ordered that the plaintiffs recover their full-indemnity motion costs of $73,000 from the defendant. Taken together, the outcome reflects a clear success for the lenders, Sam Folino and Inet Lending Corp., who obtained summary judgment for the outstanding mortgage debt (in an amount not precisely specified in the endorsement) plus a fixed costs award of $73,000, leaving only the timing and mechanics of any eventual writs of possession to be addressed in a further, more administrative motion.