BC couple to pay $320,000 for backing out of home sale as market rose
A BC couple has to pay more than $300,000 to the prospective buyer of their home after they backed out of the sale in 2015.
They initially signed the deal at $2.7 million for an 8,000 square-foot home in Surrey, but tried to cancel the sale just as the market was swinging upward.
Amrik and Jisbinder Purewal were found to have breached the contract and were ordered to pay the buyer the increased value of the home -- more than $300,000, according to a recent BC Supreme Court decision.
Wokun Zhao worked in China with a family construction business, and he was looking for a home in the Lower Mainland to immigrate with his family. After negotiating with the Purewals, they settled on the $2.78 million sale price in November 2015 with a closing date of March 28, 2016.
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The Purewals lived in the home since it was built by Amrik's development company in 2013. They had second thoughts "almost immediately" after signing the deal, according to Justice Gareth Morley's decision.
Their attempts to pull out of the contract began four days after the deal was signed when Amrik chased Zhao and his realtor off the property after they arrived for an inspection. He later told the realtor he would pay her if she could get Zhao to cancel the deal, according to the decision.
Zhao didn't know at the time, but the Purewals complained to their realtor in the weeks after the deal that they couldn't find a similar home on the market for less than $3 million as the real estate market began to balloon.
By January, the Purewals tried to renegotiate the sale for $3 million, but Zhao declined. In the end, the closing date passed and the Purewals never completed the deal.
The closing date came and went, but the Purewals didn't give up the title.
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Zhao soon took them to court over the failed deal, which is now finally settled after more than seven years.
The Purewals then tried to seize on a technicality. The sales contract called for a $100,000 deposit "sent in a cheque or money order" but paid with a bank draft. Morley said he would have agreed with them, as the stipulation was written in the contract, but it took them several years to mention their issue with the bank draft.
He found the Purewals didn't properly end the contract and it remained in place, despite their failure to give up the property.
Morley said the home was valued at $3.1 million as of the 2016 closing date, finding the Purewals owe Zhao for the $320,000 difference. He ordered them to pay Zhao a total $326,875, including other costs associated to the failed deal.
In lieu of the failed deal, Zhao bought a smaller, $2.2 million home in another area of the city, later getting his $100,000 deposit back in the fall of 2016, according to the decision.
The new home was smaller and didn't have the same features Zhao was looking for, but he settled with the three-bedroom, 2,400 square-foot home after the deal fell through.
That home is now listed for sale at $2.9 million.
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