Can You Sue Your Realtor?
Thinking of Suing Your Realtor?
A competent and professional realtor is worth their weight in gold when you are buying or selling a home. Sometimes, though, real estate agents fall short. They act unprofessionally, they make mistakes, or they put their own needs above yours. Depending on the circumstances, you may have a lawsuit against your realtor. Here are the most common lawsuits against real estate agents in Ontario:
Misrepresentations
The most common case we see against real estate agents is when they make a misrepresentation about a property to their client. For example, they may tell their buyer client that a home is 2,000 square feet when it turns out that the property is actually only 1,500 square feet. Or perhaps they told their client that the property had the right zoning to be turned into multi-family property when that was not the case. If the agent knew what they were saying was incorrect, that is fraudulent misrepresentation. If they did not know that what they were saying was false but were careless and did not take reasonable steps to ensure that what they were saying was accurate, that is negligent misrepresentation. In either event, you may have a lawsuit against your realtor.
Overpromising and Under-delivering
Sometimes, in order to secure a listing and get you to hire them, a listing agent will tell you that they can get a higher price for your property than they really can. They overpromise and under-deliver. While a real estate agent does not have an obligation to get you the best possible price, they do have an obligation to get you a fair price. If they promised you one thing and grossly under-delivered, you may have a lawsuit against your real estate agent.
Failure to Disclose Deficiencies
Under the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act, 2002, realtors have an obligation to disclose all material facts to their clients. This means they have to tell their clients about anything that would affect a reasonable person’s decision to buy or sell a property. For example, if an agent knows about a deficiency, such as a leaky basement, or ought reasonably to know of the deficiency, then they have an obligation to bring that to their client’s attention. Similarly, if you have told your realtor that you want to buy a condo with a parking space, then your realtor has an obligation to tell you if a condo does not come with a parking space.
Negligence
Under the law, real estate agents must perform their duties to a reasonable standard of competence. There are a number of ways that they can fall short of this standard, including but not limited to:
- Failing to adequately explain the consequences of waiving a financing condition;
- Failing to adequately explain the consequences of waiving a home inspection;
- Failing to properly draft the Agreement of Purchase and Sale; and
- Failing to disclose materials facts
Now You Can Sleep Soundly, Knowing You Are in Strong, Capable Hands
How are you coping with the stress of all this? Are you spending your time and energy worrying about what your next steps should be? Are you finding yourself distracted and unable to enjoy time with your family? When dealing with legal problems, it’s common for people to feel overwhelmed. The good news is, you don’t have to feel that way anymore.
If you’ve made it to this website you’ve obviously realized that you need legal help with your situation and are looking for ways to solve it. Congratulations, you’ve made it to the right place. If you need a real estate litigation lawyer, we are some of the toughest in Ontario and are ready to fight for you.
Our firm has represented hundreds of individuals and businesses across Toronto in real estate llitigatiion cases and is well respected by judges and lawyers alike.
In fact, in 2020, Powell Litigation was voted the Best Law Firm in the Toronto Star Readers’ Choice Awards. We also have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and over 300 Five-Star Reviews on Google.
If You Are Tired of Injustice, You Have Come to the Right Place
You know the injustice we’re talking about. You have suffered damages because of a real estate agent’s actions. It could be that they failed to disclose the leaky basement. It could be that they told you the property was much larger than it actually is. It may be that they failed to adequately explain the financing and home inspection clauses in your Agreement of Purchase and Sale. You can just picture their smug face asking, “What are you going to do about it?”
Well, you can start by getting all the advice you need to make an informed decision. In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, we are offering safe and easy consultations by way of telephone or video conference. Yes, that’s right: you can speak with a real estate litigation lawyer and have all of your questions answered from the safety, comfort, and convenience of your own home.
What can you expect during your consultation? Well, our lawyers are some of the most sought after legal talent in Ontario, so we have to start every consultation with a conflict check. We need to make sure that your adversary hasn’t already reached out to us.
Once we’ve run the conflict check, we’ll listen intently to your story, answer all of your questions, and then give you strategic legal advice tailored to your specific situation. We will treat you the same way we would treat our families if they got in legal trouble: with straightforward, no-nonsense advice given in the simplest terms possible.
Why Choose Powell Litigation
Do you want to know a secret about why large law firms in Toronto are so outrageously expensive? Well, for starters, they have massive overhead. Their offices are in the financial district which has the highest commercial rents in the entire province. Do you benefit at all from them having those really nice offices? Nope. Not at all. Lawyers argue their cases at court, not at their offices, so it doesn’t matter whether their offices are in overpriced steel and glass towers downtown or in a nice professional building in North York like us.
We are a young legal team, yet we have more courtroom experience than most lawyers who have been practising for decades. At the end of the day, what matters is the experience and skill that your lawyer brings to the table. What you really need is a lawyer who is as comfortable in the courtroom as they are in their own living room. The only way to get that level of comfort is by going to court. A lot. And that is exactly what you can expect from your fraud lawyer at Powell Litigation.
You’ll be shocked by this. At a recent trial, I was facing off against a lawyer who has literally been practising law since I was born. He did a fine job (although we ended up winning the trial and getting $170,117.84 for our client. You can read the decision here). What was shocking was that this lawyer confided in me that, after decades of practising law, this was his very first trial! Can you imagine that?
Over 300+ Five-Star Testimonials: What Our Clients Say
If you think that a real estate agent has made misrepresentations to you that have caused you damages, call us right now to schedule a consultation and see how we can help by filling out the form below or by calling us at (437) 222-2234