Real Estate Litigation Articles

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca As I see it, the real issue in this provincial election should be whether the Ontario government is able and willing to act decisively and promptly to maintain the rule of law and protect the citizens of the province and their homes from...

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca I received an interesting call earlier this month. A reader lives next to a construction site and the builder’s crane is continually passing through the air space above her home. She wanted to know if she was entitled to any compensation. I...

A Superior Court decision released last month underscores the importance of reviewing condominium floor plans before completing the purchase of a unit. The trial of the action took 42 court days and involved nine lawyers representing the parties. I was one of the many...

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca With thousands of new Toronto condominiums being completed each year, investor purchasers are putting many of them on the market, anxious to cash in on their profits. Unfortunately, the paperwork involved in selling them, either during...

One of the lesser known benefits of title insurance is that the insurer is obligated to provide and pay for the legal costs of defending the insured’s title if a third party sues claiming an interest in the land. That was the issue in the case of Knapman v. Deweerd...

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca Last month I received an email from a firm billing itself as a “very successful real estate investment firm that invests heavily in something called rent-to-own.” The e-mail offered several “hot deals” that were “going fast.” Three were on...

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca One of the biggest challenges facing the new home industry today is the problem of illegal construction and sale of houses. In Ontario, it is illegal for a homebuilder to enter into an agreement of purchase and sale or a construction contract...

The town of Port Hope, featured two weeks ago in a Saturday Star story on the impact of low-level nuclear contamination affecting local homeowners, is not the only Ontario municipality saddled with the burden of widespread soil contamination. The community of Cartier...

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...

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...