When the executive director of a non-profit housing society in Lethbridge signed a six-year lease-to-own arrangement for nearly half a million dollars worth of boilers and heat pumps in April 2025, the decision appeared operationally sound: aging heating infrastructure across three apartment buildings needed replacement, the vendor's financing terms were competitive, and the monthly payments could be absorbed within existing operating budgets. What the executive director did not do—and what the board's standing finance committee likewise did not do when it approved those monthly payments as routine expenditure—was examine whether the transaction triggered obligations under the society's existing general security agreement with its regional credit union. That oversight set in motion a dispute that would surface five months later during the credit union's annual collateral review, ultimately producing a formal demand letter that landed on the board chair's desk and exposed a governance gap that had persisted since 2021. The society's eleven directors, including two lawyers and three accountants, now faced a creditor asserting that the lease-to-own either created collateral subject to the security agreement's after-acquired property clause or constituted a competing security interest that required prior written consent—and the board had no documented process for screening operational decisions against its lending covenants.