A woman who told the buyer of her Shaughnessy mansion she was selling the house because her granddaughter had been accepted into Collingwood private school – while omitting that her son-in-law had been gunned down on the sidewalk outside of the house – has lost a court case she filed against a would-be buyer.
Mei Zhen Wang filed the lawsuit against Feng Yun Shao after Shao backed out of a contract to buy a mansion at 3883 Cartier St. for $6 million in 2009.
The case in B.C. Supreme Court focussed on whether the seller’s failure to disclose the unsolved targeted murder of Wang’s son-in-law Raymond Huang, two years before, was sufficient reason for Shao to walk away from the real estate deal.
At the time, Huang had been linked in some reports to the Big Circle Boys, a Chinese gang, according to the reasons for judgment.
Justice Paul Pearlman ruled March 9 that although the violent death itself didn’t constitute a “defect” of the home, the seller’s omission of that fact when asked why she was selling the house amounted to fraudulent representation.
While the reason given for selling the home – that Wang’s daughter Gui Ying Yuan and granddaughter were moving to West Vancouver so the granddaughter could enrol at Collingwood – were true, wrote Pearlman, “it concealed the fact that Ms. Yuan’s daughter changed schools as a result of Mr. Huang’s death and that the death was a factor in the plaintiff’s decision to sell the property.”
Pearlman ordered that Shao’s $300,000 deposit be returned to her, along with damages of $4,000 for associated legal costs.
According to the reasons for judgment, after the initial sale fell apart, Wang later sold the Shaughnessy mansion – described as a 9,000-square-foot six-bedroom home with an indoor pool, wine cellar and extensive gardens – to another buyer for $5.5 million.
That contract – which was subsequently assigned to a third party before it completed - contained a written clause confirming the buyer had been made aware of the death that occurred in front of the property.
