I have been writing about Canadian household debt and the cost of living for more than two decades, and in that time Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc. has become one of the few names in this industry I stopped having to double check. Not because they are flawless, but because they publish their own filing data, they have been licensed since 1999, and their fee structure is set by federal regulation rather than by a sales team. This review covers what they actually do, what they charge, what their clients say, and the cases where I would point you somewhere else entirely.
Before you file anything
Check whether you can clear this without a formal filing
A consumer proposal stays on your credit file for three years after you finish paying. If a structured repayment plan through a non-profit credit counsellor can clear the same balances, that is the cheaper outcome for your credit. It takes a short call to find out which side of the line you are on, and it costs nothing.
Hoyes Michalos at a glance
| Legal name | Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc. |
| What they are | A firm of Licensed Insolvency Trustees, licensed by the federal Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy |
| Operating since | 1999 |
| Founders | J. Douglas Hoyes (BA, CA, CPA, CIRP, CBV, LIT) and Ted Michalos (BAS, CPA, LIT) |
| Coverage | Ontario only, across 42 listed locations |
| Core services | Consumer proposals, personal bankruptcy, mandatory credit counselling, tax and student debt relief |
| Fees | Fixed by federal tariff, paid out of your monthly payment, nothing upfront |
| Consultation | Free and no obligation, by phone, video or in person |
| Hours | Monday to Thursday 8am to 6pm, Friday 8am to 5pm, closed weekends |
| Clients served | More than 200,000 since 1999, by their own count |
The short version: if you live in Ontario, your unsecured debt is in the tens of thousands, and you have accepted that you are not going to pay it back in full, this is a credible firm to call. If any one of those three things is not true, keep reading, because the answer changes.
Who runs the firm, and why that matters here
Debt relief is an industry where the person whose name is on the door often has nothing to do with your file. That is not the case here. Doug Hoyes and Ted Michalos both hold a Licensed Insolvency Trustee designation, which is the only credential in Canada that allows a person to file a consumer proposal or a bankruptcy on your behalf. Everyone else in the debt space, including every debt settlement company and every consultant, has to hand your file to someone like them at the point where a legal filing happens.
Hoyes carries an unusually deep set of letters after his name for this field: chartered accountant, chartered professional accountant, chartered insolvency and restructuring professional, and chartered business valuator. Michalos is a CPA and an LIT. Between them they have been running the firm since 1999, which means they have now worked through the 2008 credit crunch, the pandemic deferral wave, and the rate shock that followed it.
I first paid attention to them in the mid 2000s for a reason that had nothing to do with their marketing. I was trying to find anyone in Canada publishing real numbers on who files for insolvency and why, rather than the usual brochure language about fresh starts. Their Joe Debtor study, which they have run since 2011, was the first thing I found that read like research instead of a lead magnet. I have cited it in my own writing more times than I can count, and I will come back to what the latest edition says further down, because it is genuinely useful even if you never call them.
Hoyes also hosts a weekly podcast called Debt Free in 30 and wrote a book called Straight Talk on Your Money. Both of them turn up regularly on CBC, CTV, BNN, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the Financial Post. For a reader trying to judge whether a firm is substantial, a decade of on-record commentary is a stronger signal than any badge on a website.
Is Hoyes Michalos legitimate? Here is how to check it yourself
Yes, and you do not have to take my word for it. This is the part of any debt relief review that I think matters most, so here is the verification trail you can walk in about five minutes:
- Federal licence. Licensed Insolvency Trustees are licensed and supervised by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, which sits inside Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. The OSB maintains a public search of every licensed trustee in the country. If a firm is not in it, they cannot file for you, full stop. One small nitpick: their own website still describes them as regulated by Industry Canada, which was renamed in 2015. The licence is current, the department name on the page is not.
- Better Business Bureau. They hold an A+ rating and have been BBB Accredited since February 1999, with a business start date of 29 January 1999. Twenty-seven years of continuous accreditation in a sector with heavy churn is a real data point.
- Professional body. They are members of the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals, the national body for the profession.
- Court record. Every consumer proposal they file is filed with the official receiver and becomes part of the public insolvency record. This is not a private workout agreement that only exists between you and a company.
That last point is the one most people miss. The legal protection you get from a consumer proposal, which includes an automatic stay that stops wage garnishments and collection calls, comes from the filing itself. It does not come from a contract with a company. Worth reading up on how debt collection law actually works in Ontario before you decide, because a lot of people file earlier than they need to out of fear of calls that were already unlawful.
Reviews and trust signals, checked in October 2026
I pulled these from the source platforms rather than from the firm’s own summary page, and they lined up. Here is what the public record looks like:
| Platform | Score | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| ★★★★★ 4.9 / 5 | 2,675 client reviews | |
| ★★★★★ 4.9 / 5 | 97 user reviews | |
| Birdeye | ★★★★★ 4.9 / 5 | 170 aggregated reviews |
| Better Business Bureau | A+ rating, Accredited | Accredited since Feb 1999 |
Nearly 2,700 Google reviews at 4.9 is a large sample by the standards of this industry, and large samples are harder to manage than small ones. For context, most Ontario trustee firms I look at sit somewhere between 100 and 800 reviews. That volume is partly a function of 42 locations each collecting feedback, but it is still the strongest review footprint of any Ontario trustee I have checked.
Two caveats I would apply to any firm, including this one. First, the “200,000 Canadians helped” figure is self-reported and not independently audited, so treat it as a scale indicator rather than a verified statistic. Second, insolvency reviews skew positive almost everywhere, because people are reviewing the relief they felt after the filing rather than comparing the deal they got against the deal they could have got. Read reviews for how the staff treated people, not for whether the outcome was optimal.
Where you can actually sit down with them across Ontario
Hoyes Michalos is an Ontario firm. They do not operate in any other province, which is a genuine limitation if you are reading this from Alberta or Nova Scotia, and a genuine advantage if you are in Ontario, because every trustee on staff works under one provincial regime and knows the local court practice.
Their 42 listed locations break down like this:
| Region | Locations |
|---|---|
| Greater Toronto Area | Toronto Downtown, Toronto Yonge & Bloor, Toronto Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Newmarket, Oshawa |
| Hamilton, Halton and Niagara | Hamilton, Burlington, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls |
| Southwestern Ontario | Kitchener, Cambridge, Guelph, Brantford, London, Woodstock, Stratford, Sarnia, Windsor, Chatham, Leamington, Huron |
| Eastern Ontario | Ottawa, Ottawa West (Kanata), Kingston, Peterborough, Belleville, Brockville, Cornwall, Pembroke |
| Central Ontario | Barrie, Parry Sound |
| Northern Ontario | Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Timmins |
A reader in Sudbury emailed me a few years back, annoyed that she had booked an in-person appointment at a listed northern location and ended up doing the whole thing by video. This is worth understanding rather than being surprised by. In this industry, a large share of regional offices are meeting rooms booked by the day rather than staffed branches, and that is true of nearly every trustee firm with a wide footprint, not just this one. It is not deceptive, but it is not a storefront either.
So ask one question when you book: is a trustee physically in that office on the day of my appointment, or am I meeting an administrator? The answer is usually honest and it saves you a drive. Frankly, for most proposals the video route is faster and the paperwork is identical. If you would rather compare the options available across the province before you commit to any single firm, I have broken those down in my guide to Ontario debt relief and consolidation programs.
Eastern Ontario readers in particular should know there is a non-profit credit counselling route that often gets overlooked in Ottawa, and I have mapped it out separately in five credit counselling options for Ottawa residents.
What they do, and what they will not do
Their work splits into two legal filings and a set of problems those filings solve.
The two filings
- Consumer proposal. A legally binding offer to your unsecured creditors to repay part of what you owe, interest free, over a term of up to five years. You keep your house, your car, your RRSP and your tax refunds. It requires creditors holding a majority of the dollar value of your proven claims to accept. Hoyes Michalos claims a 99% acceptance rate, which is high but not implausible, because experienced trustees do not file offers they expect to be rejected. If you want the mechanics, start with what a consumer proposal is and who it is for.
- Personal bankruptcy. The full discharge route. Shorter than a proposal in most cases, nine or twenty-one months for a first filing, but you surrender non-exempt assets and you take a harder credit hit. They file these too, and in my experience the better firms are the ones willing to tell you a bankruptcy is the right answer when a proposal would just be a longer, more expensive version of the same outcome.
The problems these filings solve
- Credit card and line of credit balances. The bread and butter. If your balances are growing despite payments, read what to do when credit card balances get out of control first.
- CRA tax debt. Income tax, HST and payroll remittance arrears are all dischargeable in a proposal, which surprises people. The CRA votes like any other unsecured creditor. More on handling this in my guide to reducing credit card and CRA tax debt in 2026.
- Wage garnishments. The automatic stay stops most garnishments on filing, including CRA requirements to pay in most circumstances.
- Student loans. Government student loans can be included if you have been out of school for seven years, or five with a hardship application to the court.
- Payday loan cycles. Included like any other unsecured debt.
And here is what they will not do, which matters just as much:
- They do not lend money, so there is no consolidation loan on offer.
- They do not run a debt settlement programme in the for-profit sense. If you are weighing that route, read how debt settlement in Canada actually works, because the fee structures are not comparable.
- They do not deal with secured debt. A mortgage or car loan in arrears is not fixed by a proposal, although clearing your unsecured payments can free up the cash flow to catch up.
- They do not operate outside Ontario.
Pros and cons
👍 In their favour
- Licensed since 1999 with an unbroken A+ BBB accreditation over the same period
- Fees are set by federal tariff, so there is nothing to negotiate and nothing to be overcharged on
- Nothing payable until the proposal is filed, and no setup or minimum fees
- 4.9 on Google across nearly 2,700 reviews, the deepest review footprint of any Ontario trustee I track
- 42 Ontario locations, including five in the north where coverage is usually thin
- Publish their own annual insolvency research instead of recycling industry talking points
- Founders are named, credentialed, and on the public record in national media
👎 Where they fall short
- Ontario only, so useless to you if you live in another province
- Several of the 42 locations are appointment-based meeting rooms, not staffed branches
- No weekend availability, and the phone lines close at 6pm
- No consolidation loan or non-filing product, so every solution they offer leaves a mark on your credit file
- The 200,000 clients figure is self-reported and not independently audited
- Their site still refers to Industry Canada, a department renamed in 2015, which is a small but telling bit of neglect
- Like every trustee, they are paid out of the filing, so the incentive runs toward filing
What a consumer proposal with Hoyes Michalos actually costs
This is the section I wish more people read before they shop around, because the single most common question I get is some version of “which trustee is cheapest?” The answer is that the question does not apply. Trustee fees on a consumer proposal are fixed in law, identical at every firm in the country, and cannot be discounted or inflated.
Here is the breakdown, straight from the federal tariff:
| Charge | Amount | Set by |
|---|---|---|
| Fee on filing the proposal | $750 | Federal tariff |
| Fee on approval of the proposal | $750 | Federal tariff |
| Share of money distributed to creditors | 20% | Federal tariff |
| Two mandatory counselling sessions | $85 each | Federal tariff |
| Filing fee to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy | $100 | Government |
| Regulatory levy on creditor distributions | 5% | Government |
| What you pay on top | Nothing. Every charge above comes out of the monthly payment you negotiate, not in addition to it. | |
That last row is the whole point. If you offer your creditors $14,000 over 60 months, your payment is roughly $233 a month and the trustee’s fee is carved out of that $14,000. Your creditors absorb the cost of administering the deal. Nobody sends you a separate invoice. Hoyes Michalos is explicit that they charge no upfront fee, no setup fee and no minimum fee, and because the tariff is national, any firm telling you otherwise is doing something you should ask hard questions about.
Contrast that with a for-profit debt consultant, who charges you a fee for paperwork and then refers you to a trustee who charges the tariff anyway. You pay twice for one filing. That is the single most expensive mistake I see Canadians make in this space, and it is entirely avoidable by going to a licensed trustee directly.
Worth ruling out first
A proposal is cheap to administer but expensive on your credit file
The tariff means you will not be overcharged. It does not mean filing is the right call. A non-profit credit counselling plan can consolidate the same balances at reduced or zero interest without a public insolvency record. If your income can cover a structured plan, that is the better outcome. Ten minutes on the phone tells you which it is.
The research they publish, and what it told me about who files
Most debt relief firms publish blog posts. Hoyes Michalos publishes a dataset, and it is the main reason I rate them above firms with comparable licences and comparable review scores.
Their Joe Debtor study has run since 2011 and profiles the actual people who filed with them. The most recent edition analysed 3,870 Ontario personal insolvencies. The headline numbers:
- $67,496 in average unsecured debt at the point of filing, the highest in the fifteen years of the study
- $24,527 in average credit card debt, up 20.2% year over year
- 42.3 years average age
- $3,434 average monthly income
- 8% of filers were homeowners, up from 5% the previous year
That homeowner line is the one I would flag. Insolvency has historically been a renter’s problem in Ontario. A rise from 5% to 8% in a single year is a small absolute change and a very large relative one, and it is consistent with what I hear from readers whose mortgages renewed into a materially higher payment. The credit card jump of 20.2% tells the same story from a different angle: people are covering a fixed cost shortfall with revolving credit, which works right up until it does not.
For the national picture, the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy’s own quarterly statistics recorded 37,523 consumer insolvencies in the second quarter of 2026, up 6.9% year over year. Ontario accounted for 14,642 of them, up 10.2%, of which 11,371 were proposals and 3,271 were bankruptcies. Proposals now make up roughly 77% of all consumer filings nationally, which is a complete inversion of the picture twenty years ago, when bankruptcy was the default.
Two things follow from that for you as a reader. First, you are not an outlier. Second, the proposal has become the standard tool, which means the quality of the trustee you pick is less about whether they know how to file one and more about whether they will tell you not to.
How Hoyes Michalos compares with the other Ontario trustees
Fees are identical everywhere, so a comparison has to be about footprint, specialisation and how they handle the first conversation. Here is how I would place them against the other firms I have reviewed:
| Firm | Coverage | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Hoyes Michalos | Ontario, 42 locations | Ontario residents who want depth of experience, northern coverage, and a firm that publishes its own data |
| Spergel | Ontario, Toronto focused | GTA filers who want a long established Toronto practice |
| Harris & Partners | Ontario | Filers who want a smaller practice with more direct trustee contact |
| Farber Debt Solutions | National | Anyone outside Ontario, or complex files with business debt |
| BDO Debt Solutions | National | Filers who want a large accounting firm behind the licence |
If you are in Ontario, honestly, the practical difference between these firms on a straightforward credit card proposal is small, because the legal product is the same and the fee is the same. Pick on the basis of who answers the phone properly and who is closest. If your file has anything unusual in it, a business, a spousal co-signer, significant CRA arrears or a property you are trying to keep, then experience starts to matter and that is where a firm running since 1999 across 42 locations has an edge.
Who should call them, and who should not
Worth a free consultation if:
- You live in Ontario and your unsecured debt is somewhere between roughly $10,000 and $250,000
- You have accepted you are not going to clear the balances in full within five years
- You have income, because a proposal requires a monthly payment and without income bankruptcy is the relevant route
- You are facing a wage garnishment or a CRA requirement to pay and need the stay
- You want to keep a house or a car and need the asset protection a proposal gives
- You have significant tax debt, which most non-filing options cannot touch
Look elsewhere first if:
- You live outside Ontario. They cannot help you, and a national firm can
- You could clear the debt in under two years with a tighter budget or a rate reduction. Start with the bankruptcy alternatives I would look at first
- Your problem is cash flow rather than insolvency, in which case a non-profit credit counselling plan is cheaper for your credit file. My review of Consolidated Credit Canada covers that route
- Your debt is almost entirely secured, meaning mortgage or vehicle. A proposal does not reach it
- You have a strong credit score and a realistic shot at a consolidation loan at a sensible rate
I will say one more thing about the incentive question, because it would be dishonest to skip it. Every trustee in Canada, including this one, gets paid out of a filing. That does not make them untrustworthy, and the regulated fee removes the worst of the pressure, but it does mean the free consultation is not neutral advice from a party with nothing at stake. The fix is simple: get the trustee’s assessment, then get a second read from someone whose revenue does not depend on you filing. If both say file, file with confidence.
Get the second opinion
Hear the non-filing option before you sign anything
A non-profit credit counsellor has no filing to sell you, so you get a straight read on whether your income can carry a repayment plan instead. If it cannot, you have lost nothing and you go back to the trustee better informed. The assessment is free and there is no obligation.
My verdict
Overall: ★★★★☆ 4.6 / 5 for Ontario residents
A legitimate, long established and unusually transparent Licensed Insolvency Trustee. Twenty-seven years of licensing, an A+ BBB file running back to 1999, 4.9 across nearly 2,700 Google reviews, and a published research programme that most of their competitors cannot match. The fees are identical to every other trustee in Canada because the law says so, so you are choosing on competence and access rather than price, and on both they rate well. The marks come off for being Ontario only, for having no option that avoids a mark on your credit file, and for a website that has not been fully proofread in a decade. If you are in Ontario and a filing is genuinely the right step, they belong on your shortlist.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hoyes Michalos a legitimate company?
Yes. Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc. is a firm of Licensed Insolvency Trustees licensed by the federal Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, in business since January 1999. They hold an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and have been BBB Accredited since February 1999. They are members of the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals. You can confirm their licence yourself through the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy’s public trustee search.
How much does Hoyes Michalos charge?
Nothing directly. Consumer proposal fees in Canada are fixed by federal tariff and identical at every trustee firm: $750 on filing, $750 on approval, 20% of money distributed to creditors, $85 for each of two mandatory counselling sessions, a $100 government filing fee and a 5% regulatory levy. All of it is paid out of the monthly payment your creditors accept, so there is no separate bill, no upfront fee, no setup fee and no minimum fee. If a different firm quotes you more for a consumer proposal, something is wrong.
Does Hoyes Michalos operate outside Ontario?
No. All 42 of their listed locations are in Ontario and they do not serve other provinces. If you live in Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, the Atlantic provinces or the territories, you need a trustee licensed and practising there. National firms such as BDO Debt Solutions and Farber Debt Solutions cover most of the country.
Are all 42 Hoyes Michalos offices staffed full time?
No, and this is normal across the industry. The main offices, including Kitchener, are staffed practices. Many of the regional locations are appointment-based meeting spaces where a trustee or administrator attends on scheduled days. Ask when you book whether a trustee will be physically present, because for most files a video appointment is faster and produces identical paperwork.
What is the difference between Hoyes Michalos and a debt settlement company?
Hoyes Michalos holds a federal trustee licence, which allows them to file a consumer proposal that legally binds every unsecured creditor and triggers an automatic stay of collection action and wage garnishments. A debt settlement company holds no such licence. It negotiates informally, individual creditors can refuse, and nothing stops a lawsuit. Debt settlement fees are set by the company, not by law, and in Ontario they are capped by provincial legislation rather than fixed by tariff. If a consultant charges you a fee and then refers you to a trustee, you are paying twice for one filing.
How long does a consumer proposal with Hoyes Michalos take?
The filing itself happens within days of your paperwork being complete, and collection action stops at that point. Creditors then have 45 days to vote, after which the proposal is approved or deemed approved. Repayment runs for whatever term you proposed, up to a legal maximum of five years, and most people choose the full 60 months to keep the monthly payment low. You can pay it off early with no penalty, which shortens the credit reporting window as well.
What does a consumer proposal do to my credit score?
Every account included in the proposal is reported with an R7 notation, and the proposal itself stays on your Equifax and TransUnion file for three years after you make the final payment, or six years from the filing date, whichever comes first. A bankruptcy carries a harder R9 notation for six to seven years. Both are better than years of missed payments, which also damage your file while leaving the debt in place. If keeping your credit file clean is the priority and your income can support it, a non-profit repayment plan avoids the insolvency record altogether.
Can Hoyes Michalos stop a wage garnishment?
In most cases, yes. Filing a consumer proposal or a bankruptcy creates an automatic stay of proceedings that halts garnishments by unsecured creditors, including a CRA requirement to pay in most circumstances. Support and maintenance garnishments are not stayed, because family support obligations survive insolvency. If a garnishment has already started, say so on the first call, because it changes how quickly they need to file.
Can I include CRA tax debt in a proposal?
Yes. Income tax, HST and payroll remittance arrears are unsecured debts in an insolvency and are dischargeable through a consumer proposal. The CRA votes like any other creditor and routinely accepts reasonable offers. The exception is where the CRA has already registered a lien against your property, which converts the claim into secured debt that a proposal cannot clear.
Will I lose my house or car in a consumer proposal?
No. That is the main structural advantage of a proposal over a bankruptcy. You keep your assets, including home equity, vehicles, RRSPs and tax refunds, provided you keep paying any secured loans attached to them. A bankruptcy, by contrast, can require you to surrender non-exempt equity. This is why most Ontario homeowners who need insolvency relief file a proposal rather than a bankruptcy.
Is a consumer proposal better than a debt consolidation loan?
It depends entirely on whether you can still borrow at a sensible rate. A consolidation loan repays the full balance and leaves no insolvency record, which makes it the better outcome when you qualify. A proposal reduces the principal but creates a public filing and an R7 notation. If your credit has already deteriorated to the point where the only loans available carry rates above 30%, the loan is usually the worse deal in real money. I have compared the two in detail in my piece on debt consolidation versus a consumer proposal.
What is the Joe Debtor study?
It is Hoyes Michalos’s own annual research project, running since 2011, which profiles the Ontario residents who filed insolvency with them in the preceding year. The most recent edition covered 3,870 filings and reported average unsecured debt of $67,496, average credit card debt of $24,527, an average filer age of 42.3 and average monthly income of $3,434. It is one of the few sources of granular Canadian insolvency data published outside government, and it is free to read.
Sources checked in October 2026: the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy quarterly insolvency statistics, the fee tariff at section 129 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency General Rules, and the firm’s Better Business Bureau profile. Review scores were taken from the source platforms. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice for your situation.
Mark Turner is a retired financial writer that now enjoys blogging about different financial topics, such as commodities, inflation, debt, retirement, alternative investments and Canadian politics.
