Developer Cancels Contracts of Coquitlam Home Buyers
The Buyers of 32 homes in Coquitlam's Riverbend development to have had their deposits returned and their contracts with the developer, CB Development 2000 Ltd., cancelled. The buyers had all bought their homes at pre-sale in 2005. The Vancouver Sun and CBC reports that the developer has run into financial difficulties with their financing as construction costs have risen sharply over the past few years. Their lender has demanded that the homes be sold for today's fair market value and the developer therefore felt that they had no choice but to rescind the contracts of these 32 homeowners and re-sell the homes at today's prices.
A group of the home buyers are suing the developer for "specific performance" (ie. to fulfill the pre-sale contracts). The news stories quote one of the buyers saying that these contracts have no provision for the developer to back out. This seems odd as this is now a standard term in most pre-sale contracts.
I wish these buyers all the best and this should be a good story to keep an eye on over the coming weeks and months.