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North Shore News - Fri, Mar 12, 2010

In recent court decisions concerning real estate deals on the North Shore, two B.C. Supreme Court justices took a dim view of buyers who tried to wiggle their way out of their contracts after they signed them.

The judges said once the contracts are signed, they are binding.

In the first case, Wayne and Nina Hassel sued Masoud Khoshgoo after he reneged on his agreement to buy their home on East Fifth Street in North Vancouver in 2008.

The Hassels were eager to sell their home in North Vancouver and buy a retirement home on the Sunshine Coast. Khoshgoo signed a contract agreeing to buy the house for $639,000 on May 24, 2008, completing the deal without a real estate agent on a Self Counsel Press pre-printed form. He signed the contract, giving the Hassels a $30,000 deposit.

The completion date for the sale was to be July 14.

But on the morning the deal was to be finalized, the couple got a call from the notary handling the legal documents, saying Khoshgoo was not going to go through with the sale.

"This created a serious problem for the plaintiffs because they had purchased their new property on the Sunshine Coast and required the proceeds of the sale from the North Vancouver home for that purpose," wrote Justice William Ehrcke.

The couple had to take out a new mortgage on the new property and listed their North Vancouver house for sale again.

But the real estate market had started falling. Eventually the couple sold the house for $480,000.

Khoshgoo didn't dispute that he signed the contract but argued the contract was subject to financing, even though that wasn't explicitly stated in writing.

He also argued that he did not understand the contract was binding because English wasn't his first language.

The judge, however, rejected those arguments, saying Khoshgoo had an offer of financing in place -- although not at terms he was pleased with.

Khoshgoo also had enough understanding of English to know the contract he was signing was binding, said the judge, noting Khoshgoo had prepared an affidavit without the help of a translator.

The judge ordered Khoshgoo to pay the Hassels $160,000 -- the difference between the price they got and the one they would have had if Khoshgoo had gone ahead with the sale -- plus the costs of having to sell their house again.