A Rutland property listed for $1 million back in March 2022 sold for $2.45 million after a chaotic bidding war by several developers. But the matter is now winding its way through the courts after the deal fell through.
Georganna Moore and John Szabo had lived at 165 Leathead Road for more than 30 years, but with plans to move to Alberta, they listed their 0.27-acre property in March 2022 with an asking price of $1 million.
The listing described the property as an “incredible development opportunity” that was “priced to sell.”
“An opportunity [like] this rarely comes along so developers start your engines this is what you have been looking for,” the listing stated.
On March 19, just four days after the property was listed, a bidding war ensued, with four parties submitting offers ranging from $900,000 to $1.3 million.
“I would describe the situation as a ‘frenzy’ as agents kept calling me with their prices and the offers for the Property kept climbing,” the sellers’ realtor Amanda Tak said in a deposition.
The offers climbed rapidly throughout the day, to $1.8 million, then $2.2 million. Finally, the couple accepted Rajveer Deol’s bid of $2.45 million, and Deol sent over a $100,000 deposit a few days later.
But things went off the rails when Deol’s realtor Aman Kandola reached out to the City of Kelowna about a small adjoining property at 160 Leathead Road that’s owned by the city. Prior to accepting Deol’s offer, Tak had told Kandola that the city had offered the small property to her clients about 25 years prior.
“Pretty exciting stuff about the potentials of the two properties together I would say,” Tak texted Kandola on the morning of March 19. “You would buy 160 Leathead at the assess value from the city which is assessed at 126K.”
But in late April 2022, a City of Kelowna employee told Kandola staff would not recommend the sale of 160 Leathead due to utility infrastructure located on the small property. She said if Deol were to purchase the lot, the cost of relocating the infrastructure would fall on Deol, which she expected would “be cost prohibitive to purchasing the lot.”
On June 6, 2022, Tak says Kandola called her and told her Deol would likely be unable to purchase the property.
“[Deol] was about 30 years old and had been relying on funds from his family which did not work out and consequently he was unable to obtain financing to complete the transaction,” Tak said in her deposition.
The following month, the sellers terminated the contract and moved to Alberta. They re-listed the property for $1.5 million, but amidst a rapidly changing housing market, they received no offers. After reducing their asking price a couple more times, they finally sold the property to a new buyer for $1 million, completing the sale in November 2022.
Moore and Szabo have now filed a lawsuit against Deol, claiming damages of more than $1.46 million, including the forfeiture of the $100,000 deposit, for breaching their contract, which led to them having to sell the property for far less. But Deol says he didn’t breach the contract, as there were key elements that were misrepresented in the property listing.
In a recent decision, Justice Bradford Smith ruled the matter is not appropriate for an abbreviated “summary trial,” and a full trial is appropriate given the need to assess the credibility of potential witnesses.
The allegations from the lawsuit remain unproven at this point.
Meanwhile, a development proposal for the property is currently before the City of Kelowna, having first been submitted last fall. Kelowna-based Stretch Construction is hoping to build a six-storey rental-only apartment building on the property. The single-family home on the property has been demolished, and the property is currently vacant.
The current developer never purchased the lot at 160 Leathead, and it remains owned by the city.
Photo: Stretch Construction
A proposed six-storey apartment building for 165 Leathead Road.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
MONTREAL – The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says Montreal-area home sales rose 9.3 per cent in August compared with the same month last year, with levels slightly higher than the historical average for this time of year.
The association says home sales in the region totalled 2,991 for the month, up from 2,737 in August 2023.
The median price for all housing types was up year-over-year, led by a six per cent increase for the price of a plex at $763,000 last month.
The median price for a single-family home rose 5.2 per cent to $590,000 and the median price for a condominium rose 4.4 per cent to $407,100.
QPAREB market analysis director Charles Brant says the strength of the Montreal resale market contrasts with declines in many other Canadian cities struggling with higher levels of household debt, lower savings and diminishing purchasing power.
Active listings for August jumped 18 per cent compared with a year earlier to 17,200, while new listings rose 1.7 per cent to 4,840.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
