B.C. realtor ordered to pay $1.5M for botched sale gets slight break
A B.C. realtor who was ordered to pay $1.5 million after he sold a piece of land without telling the buyer it was soon to be transferred into the Agricultural Land Reserve has won a partial reprieve after taking the case to the B.C. Court of Appeal.
While B.C. Court of Appeal Justice Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten rejected much of realtor Todd Fyfe's appeals, the three-judge panel did knock down $450,000 of the amount of compensation he was ordered to pay his former client.
The case dates back a decade when Calgary businessman Kevin Dunn arranged to purchase a piece of land to build a boutique ski lodge near Fernie.
Dunn hired Fyfe to facilitate the sale of the plot where he planned to build a $3 million ski lodge.
However, while the sale was going through, the Agricultural Land Reserve had plans to reclassify the land.
The Agricultural Land Reserve had allowed property owners to opt-out of the reclassification, but Fyfe never told Dunn about this.
It was only several years later after the sale had been complete that Dunn found out about the Agricultural Land Reserve classification when a building permit was denied.
While Dunn tried to change his business plan to appease the new tough regulations, he ultimately ended up suing Fyfe over the sale.
READ MORE: Judge orders B.C realtor to pay $1.5 M for botching sale
In 2021 he won and a B.C. Supreme Court Justice ordered Fyfe to pay Dunn $1.5 million.
Fyfe appealed the decision on six grounds but lost most of his claims.
However, according to a May 27 B.C. Court of Appeal decision, the Justice did side with the realtor on one issue.
Much of the original hearing focused on calculating how much Dunn had lost due to his business having to be completely reorganized because he couldn't build on the land.
Dunn argued that the original judge made an error by awarding business-related losses for 2016 and 2017 when the retreat would not have been operating in those years.
Justice DeWitt-Van Oosten agreed.
While the original judge had awarded $675,000 for lost profits, the Appeals court recalculated the loss to a total of $219,000.
While a partial win, the realtor is still stuck paying just more than $1 million in compensation.
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