Court rules buyer responsible for withdrawing from Burlington property sale

QUICK HITS

• A buyer who failed to close on a Burlington property due to lack of funds attempted to rely on legal defences of force majeure and frustration, citing difficulties accessing inherited money from Afghanistan and a failed sale of another property.
• The Ontario Superior Court ruled that these circumstances did not qualify as unforeseen events under contract law and that the buyer remained responsible for fulfilling the APS.
• As a result, the court awarded the sellers $280,739 in damages, covering the $250,000 difference in sale price and additional expenses incurred while relisting the property.

Parties to a binding agreement to buy a property may wish to get out of the deal if their circumstances change before closing, particularly if they have not been able to secure financing by the closing date. Court decisions have repeatedly illustrated that there are very limited grounds to do so.

Buyer fails to close and seeks extension

According to the Superior Court of Justice decision of Liddell v. Mousavi, in February 2022, the parties entered into an Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) for the sale of the plaintiffs’ property to the defendant for $1.35-million, with an extended closing date scheduled for Jul. 22, 2022. The APS did not have any financing or other conditions that needed to be waived.

In the weeks leading up to the scheduled completion date, the defendant verbally requested a three-month extension, which was declined by the plaintiffs.

On the closing date, the plaintiffs received correspondence from their lawyer handling the closing, advising that the defendant had just retained a lawyer for the transaction and was requesting a 45-day extension of the closing. The lawyer advised that without an extension the defendant would not be able to close. The plaintiffs declined the request for an extension.

The defendant failed to deliver the balance of the purchase funds required and the transaction did not close despite the plaintiffs being ready, willing and able to do so.

Plaintiffs relist property and claim losses

The plaintiffs then relisted the property for sale. They received one offer in November 2022, for under $1-million, which they rejected. From January to March 2023, they exchanged offers with potential buyers in a range of $1.05-million to $1.12-million which were not firmed up.

The plaintiffs ultimately sold the property in April 2023 for $1.1-million. They sued the defendant for damages based on the lower sale price and brought a motion for summary judgment.

Buyer argues frustration due to lack of funds

In response to the claim, the defendant argued that she should be relieved of her obligations under the APS.

In particular, she claimed that she inherited a little more than $565,000 USD in Afghanistan, held for her in the Afghanistan International Bank, which she intended to bring to Canada to purchase the property. However, as a result of the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and the subsequent withdrawal of American forces, which created a power vacuum and led to Taliban control, the banking system was suspended, and she was unable to get the funds. The defendant argued that these events frustrated the APS and were out of her control.

The defendant also claimed that the APS was frustrated because an agreement of purchase and sale that she had entered into to sell another property, which she owned in Hamilton, fell through and she did not have money from that sale to close the APS.

Court finds no basis for force majeure defence

Force majeure is a general description for a term in some contracts that protects a party from having to perform their obligations as a result of unexpected events such as civil wars or extreme weather events (sometimes described as “acts of God”).

The motion judge noted, however, that the APS did not contain a written force majeure term and that neither of the parties’ counsel had provided the court with any case where a force majeure clause was found to be an implied term of a contract.

Since there was no force majeure clause in the APS, the defendant could not rely on this doctrine to be relieved of her obligations thereunder.

Frustration of contract argument also dismissed

The principle of frustration of contract arises where an unforeseeable event occurring after the formation of a contract renders the contract unable to be performed, but not where the event was the result of a voluntary act of the party seeking to rely on the doctrine.

A fall in the real estate market is not enough to trigger the doctrine of frustration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many litigants attempted to raise the issue of frustration of contract in order to justify terminating a real estate transaction due to the change in their ability to obtain financing. Such arguments were routinely rejected since it was not the seller who was at fault for the buyer’s inability to pay for the property.

In the case at hand, the…