‘One in bazillion chance’: Calgary family could lose their new home due to TD Banking technicalities

The Johnston family bought their new Mahogany home last month, with Friday being move in day.

They sold their current home and were due to take possession of the new home down the road at lunch time, but due to a banking issue at one of Canada’s largest banks, they stayed put.

“It’s such an exciting day for the whole family and kind of puts a bit of a stain on it,” said Matt Johnston.

Johnston says he and his wife and two kids had packed up their home, and set aside the weekend to get all their belongings into their new home.

But nationwide outages and delays with direct deposit halted those plans.

“We got a call from the lawyer saying it's national news and (there is) nothing we can do,” said Johnston.

“There was a chance that the sellers could also take the deposit and take the house back because in the contract, we're essentially not closing by noon today.”

Johnston is hopeful the sellers don’t try to nix the deal, and can move in Monday, if the problem is fixed.

“I'm not with TD, it's the lender sending the money to the lawyers who I believe are with TD, so I don't do my personal banking with them,” he said.

“And I can tell you, I won't be in the future.”

TD Bank Canada says it's "aware of an issue causing delayed direct deposit payments to some customers.”

TD Bank Canada says it's "aware of an issue causing delayed direct deposit payments to some customers.”

Mick Ramos, corporate and public affairs manager at TD Canada, told CTVNews.ca in an email the company is “working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”

He did not provide further information about what’s causing the direct deposit delays or when the problem might be fixed.

Ramos said that "any fees incurred due to missing direct deposits will be refunded once the issue is resolved."

Many customers gravitated towards Twitter to message the company upon realizing payments were not coming into their accounts.

Some comments asked why they hadn’t received an official statement through email or the TD mobile app announcing the issue.

Johnston says he expected to be in his new home Friday night.

“When you go through all the paperwork with the lawyers, they do tell you (it’s a) one in a bazillion chance that there's a big crash and the lender falls through, the banks close and they honestly laugh when they tell you that worst case scenario and it's happened,” said Johnston.

As of 6 p.m. MST Friday, the technical issue at TD Bank has yet to be resolved.

With Files From CTVNews.ca