Agent’s responsibility doesn’t end with advice

by admin | Jun 11, 2011 | 2011 Toronto Star Columns, Toronto Star Property Law Columns

An Ontario court has found a real estate agent partially liable in damages for failing to review a home inspector’s report carefully with his purchaser client. The court found that the agent’s duty did not end with the recommendation that the purchaser obtain a home...

Use SPIS forms at your own peril – Krawchuk v. Sherbak

by admin | May 28, 2011 | 2011 Toronto Star Columns, Toronto Star Property Law Columns

If there ever was any doubt about the risks to sellers and real estate agents of using the Seller Property Information Statement (SPIS), a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal earlier this month would seem to have put them to rest once and for all. In the case of...

Court will decide about ‘latent defects’

by admin | May 14, 2011 | 2011 Toronto Star Columns, Toronto Star Property Law Columns

Does a seller have an obligation to disclose to a purchaser with young children the fact that a person convicted of child pornography lives across the street? That was the issue in a court case which came before Justice Alexandra Hoy in March of this year. The...

Title insurers come under fire in Quebec

by admin | Apr 30, 2011 | 2011 Toronto Star Columns, Toronto Star Property Law Columns

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca The governing bodies of the notary and legal professions in Quebec have launched a lawsuit against several title insurance companies over the preparation and registration of mortgages and discharges of mortgages on real estate in the province....

Shocked by stories of the “neighbours from hell”

by admin | Apr 16, 2011 | 2011 Toronto Star Columns, Toronto Star Property Law Columns

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca In my column on April 2, I wrote about a study by Halifax Home Insurance in the U.K. which reported that more than 360,000 Britons, or one in 10 people, moved home because of irritating neighbours. I expressed my doubts that that statistic would...