MURDER KILLS SALE
Owner who failed to disclose gang-related slaying of her son-in-law in front of her Shaughnessy property ordered to return homebuyer’s $300,000 deposit
A judge has ordered that the owner of a home in Vancouver’s exclusive Shaughnessy neighbourhood who failed to disclose a gang-related murder of the owner’s sonin-law in front of the property be required to return a $300,000 deposit to a purchaser of the home.
In September 2009, Mei Zhen Wang agreed to sell her luxury home at 3883 Cartier Street to Feng Yun Sh ao, who was unaware at the time that Raymond Huang, Wang’s son-in-law, had been fatally shot outside the home two years earlier.
Huang was a leading member of the notorious Big Circle Boys, an international gang involved in crimes including drug trafficking.
The price for the 9,000-sq.-ft. home, which featured six bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, an indoor pool, a wine cellar and extensive gardens, was $6.138 million.
Shao paid a deposit of $300,000, but when she learned shortly afterward of Huang’s unsolved murder, the entrepreneur and mother of three was fearful for her family’s safety and decided not to complete the purchase. The property was later sold to another buyer for $5.5 million.
Wang, an 84-year-old woman from China who lived in the home for a time with her family, sued Shao for breach of contract and claimed she was entitled to keep the deposit and to additional damages of $338,000.
Shao filed a counterclaim against Wang, alleging Wang owed her a duty to disclose all of the material facts regarding the property, including Huang’s murder.
The trial heard that on Nov. 7, 2007, an unknown assailant shot Huang, who died on the sidewalk just outside the front gate of the property.
Winnie Yuan, who is Wang’s daughter and was married to Huang, had along with Huang earlier in the evening visited their son at Vancouver General Hospital. Huang left the hospital before Yuan, who later discovered her husband lying on the sidewalk. She testified that she initially thought Huang had fainted, and recalled that a police officer later told her that her husband had died.
Asked in cross-examination as to whether her husband was a victim of a targeted shooting, she initially responded that she didn’t know whether it was a murder or not, but then agreed that it was a murder.
Yuan, who had initially bought the Cartier Street home on behalf of her mother and later transferred title to Wang but was acting with power of attorney at the time of the sale, was arrested by Hong Kong police in December 2009 and served jail time for money-laundering following a separate proceeding.
At the B.C. trial, she said Huang was a businessman whose enterprises included a trucking company and a restaurant. Yuan denied that Huang was a gang member.
Wang testified she couldn’t remember too much about Huang’s business dealings, and when asked whether she knew about the gang allegations, she was “evasive,” according to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman’s ruling.
Court heard Yuan listed the home for sale on behalf of her mother.
Shao argued that Huang’s violent death was a “latent defect” that made the property dangerous to its occupants and was grounds for her refusal to complete the sale.
The judge found the death was not a “latent defect” as it was not related to the home’s physical or intrinsic qualities, but concluded Wang had fraudulently misrepresented the reasons for sale in disclosing only that the home was sold because Yuan’s daughter was changing schools. “Ms. Yuan knew, as she acknowledged at trial, that her daughter would not have changed schools but for the murder of Raymond (Huang), ” said the judge.
“Although Ms. Yuan disclosed the murder of her husband to (the realtors), and sought advice ... she and the plaintiff had no intention of disclosing the death unless they were obliged to do so.”
The judge dismissed Wang’s claims and ordered that Shao’s $300,000 deposit be returned to her, and also awarded her $4,000 in damages for legal fees related to the collapsed sale of the property.