What You Need to Know – Nuances Matter

In the fall of 2022, Ms. Marilyn Grenier learned that a vacant piece of land in the Municipality of Saint-Boniface was for sale. She was interested in buying it to build a family home.[i] She contacted Mr. Charles-Mathieu C?té, the listing real estate broker, and learned, both from her conversation with Mr. C?té ?and from the Listing of the property, that the land was serviced by the Municipality’s water and sewer systems.[ii] Indeed, the Listing specified that the property was “one of the rare [vacant lands] serviced by municipal water and sewer systems”.[iii]

?Ms. Grenier made an offer to purchase the property from its owner, Mr. Pier-Luc Charest, for $30,000.00 which was immediately accepted.[iv] The deed of sale was executed on September 13, 2022.[v]?

?Shortly thereafter, Ms. Grenier applied to the Municipality for a construction permit. She learned that the land actually was not connected to the municipal water and sewer systems and that she would have to pay close to $15,000.00 in order to effect such connections.[vi] Moreover, she was informed that Mr. Charest was well aware of the situation because, the previous year, he had asked for a construction permit and was told that he would have to pay to connect the land to the water and sewer systems, as well as the cost of doing so.[vii]

?Alleging that Mr. Charest had cheated her, Ms. Grenier sued him for $7,493.77 for the cost of the required connections. She also sued Re/Max de Francheville Inc., the real estate agency Mr. C?té worked for.[viii]

?

The only questions the Court had to decide was whether:

?1.????Mr. Charest had misrepresented the facts by indicating that the municipality “serviced” the land with water and sewer?services; and

?2.????Mr. C?té failed in his obligations to her by not verifying that the property was so “serviced” .[ix]

?The Court’s to both questions was “No”.[x]

?It was clear that Mr. Charest knew that the land was not connected to the municipal water and sewer systems. But that did not matter as Quebec jurisprudence held that there was a difference between representing that a property is served by the municipal water and sewer systems, on the one hand, and that it is connected to such systems, on the other hand.[xi]

?In particular, the case of Yau vs. Bengassem[xii]?held that “…the word ‘service’ indicates that the municipal services are in place, embedded under the street, ready to be “connected.” The judge in that case added that a purchaser “… must act with prudence and diligence when buying an immovable. A prudent and diligent person must carry out all the necessary verifications, considering indications of problems that are revealed to him by the other party. Otherwise [such person] is willfully blind.”[xiii]

?The Court concluded that the information that the property “is serviced by municipal water and sewers system is neither false nor erroneous in the circumstances.”[xiv]

?It also concluded that Mr. C?té’s obligations did not extend to verifying if the property was actually connected to the municipal services or if there was a cost for such a connection.[xv]

?As a result, the Court dismissed Ms. Grenier’s case.[xvi]

?It should be noted that Mr. Charest did not appear to defend himself[xvii] but the Court, nevertheless, found in his favour.

?WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

?·??????It is obvious that Ms. Grenier understood the word “service” to mean that the property was connected to the municipal water and sewage services. Unfortunately for her, she was wrong. If one wishes to be certain that a declaration by a co-contracting party, in this case the seller of real estate, means what one thinks it means, one should verify the correctness of the information received. Otherwise, as Ms. Grenier found, the nuances between what one thinks a word means and what it, in fact, means can prove to be expensive.

?It goes without saying that the preceding comments are general in nature and are not intended to offer any legal advice regarding any specific situation.

[i] Charest vs. Grenier 2022 QCCQ 4819 at paragraph 7. (Unless otherwise indicated, all references to paragraph numbers refer to paragraph numbers of the Court of Quebec’s Judgment, unless otherwise indicated all footnotes and internal references omitted from the Judgment.)

[ii] Para. 8.

[iii] Para. 49.

[iv] Para. 10.

[v] Para. 11.

[vi] Para. 12.

[vii] Para. 13.

[viii] Paras. 2 & 15.

[ix] Para. 16.

[x] Paras. 19 & 25

[xi] Para. 20.

[xii] 2011 QCCQ 7050

[xiii] Para. 23.

[xiv] Para. 24.

[xv] Para. 25.

[xvi] Para. 27.

[xvii] Para. 4.