When a buyer backs out of a real estate deal, the seller may be entitled to damages, but proving the buyer was responsible for the failed transaction is only part of the battle. Sellers must also take reasonable steps to mitigate their losses, typically by re-listing...
Adding a child to title is one of the more popular real estate transactions in Ontario, especially among elderly parents who want to reduce the probate tax burden on their intended heirs by facilitating a transfer outside their estate after death.
But joint tenancy is also an increasingly common source of real estate litigation involving parents who change their mind after falling out with a child over the control, maintenance or sale of jointly held property that was once theirs alone.
The principle of buyer beware offers some protection to real estate vendors, but it is not an absolute defence to a latent defect claim. If a seller deceives or misleads a buyer about the state of the property, they run the risk of being held liable.
An increasing number of latent-defect plaintiffs are adding claims for mental stress and inconvenience. These claims are highly fact-specific, and judges have taken differing positions on their availability in breach-of-contract actions.
In the recent case of Lahey v. Lahey, which involved a long-running family property dispute, Ontario Superior Court Justice Spencer Nicholson provided a valuable overview of these myriad options, including another underused mechanism that neither party raised.
Although Ontario’s Statute of Frauds generally bars the enforcement of an oral agreement for the purchase of land, Canadian law recognizes an exception to the rule: the equitable doctrine of part performance.
You’ll need more than a simple handshake to prove the existence of an oral agreement, but convincing a judge to apply the doctrine of part performance is possible in the right circumstances, as the recent Court of Appeal decision in 2730453 Ontario Inc. v. 2380673 Ontario Inc. demonstrates.
Breaching an agreement of purchase and sale (APS) does not automatically terminate the real estate deal. In Toronto’s pre-construction condo and townhouse market, collapsed real estate transactions are an increasingly common sight as over-stretched buyers realize they...
The summary judgment rule in Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure grants judges enhanced fact-finding powers, allowing them to decide cases finally without the need for a full trial. Even partial summary judgment — where a judge decides certain key issues based on a limited record — can move parties a long way towards a final resolution, by narrowing the issues in dispute and encouraging the parties to settle those that remain
The Supreme Court may revisit constructive trusts to resolve the outstanding question of whether the remedy is precluded beyond cases of unjust enrichment or wrongful acts. But in the meantime, the takeaway for litigants is that the constructive trusts may be imposed based on good conscience alone.
The fact that so many commercial matters end up being settled behind closed doors in arbitration helps explain the relative lack of public decisions on issues like this one. But it’s not just the privacy of the process that attracts parties to alternative dispute resolution, and this case will also be encouraging for reinforcing the finality of arbitral decisions.
When co-owners’ interests diverge, Ontario’s Partition Act provides an effective mechanism for the division and sale of a property, as the Court of Appeal recently demonstrated when it upheld a motion judge’s order for the sale of a jointly owned commercial propertyin Nutrition Guidance Services Inc. v. Schwartz. When co-owners can no longer work together, courts will not force them to remain as co-owners and will order a sale under the Partition Act.
For buyers, the bottom line is that contractual deadlines are not to be taken lightly. If you intend to complete a deal, you must ensure that your funding is lined up in plenty of time and that all your other obligations under the APS — even minor ones – have been fulfilled as agreed.