'Development project gone terribly wrong': B.C. court awards $5.1M to buyers of doomed subdivision sites

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has awarded a couple and their property investment company more than $5 million in damages for what he describes as "a real estate development project gone terribly wrong."

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has awarded a couple and their property investment company more than $5 million in damages for what he describes as "a real estate development project gone terribly wrong."

Justice F. Matthew Kirchner issued his 140-page decision in the case on Monday, finding defendants Yunal Kumar Nath, Jozsef Horvath and their companies jointly and severally liable for all of the $5,164,950 owed to Weihe Wang, Guilian Tian and Weihe Investments Ltd. 

A third party, Ying Ping Guo, was also found liable for several million dollars in damages, but Kirchner concluded that Nath, Horvath and their companies were obligated to indemnify Guo for "the full amount of his liability to the plaintiffs."

Each of the numerous claims addressed in Kirchner's decision stems from the parties' acquisition of and attempts to develop a pair of roughly 150-acre properties, one southwest of Prince George and the other at the top of Sumas Mountain in Abbotsford.

The parties' testimony on the purchases and the development efforts often contradicted itself and that of other participants, according to the decision, which found both the plaintiffs and the defendants lacked credibility and reliability as witnesses.

The judge arrived at his version of events based on the testimony of certain third-party witnesses whom he deemed credible, as well as documentary evidence and cautious use of the plaintiffs' and defendants' testimony.

The plaintiffs, Wang and Tian, are spouses who immigrated to Canada from China in 2005. Wang was the owner of a "very successful" pharmaceutical in China until his retirement, and spends only one to two months in Canada each year, according to the decision. His wife has remained in Canada with their children – who are now all adults – and has been a Canadian citizen since 2010.