B.C. man says Realtor promised him $3K for buying $1.5M home, has claim dismissed

A for sale sign is seen outside a home in East Vancouver on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023. (CTV)

B.C.'s small claims tribunal has ruled against a man who claimed his real estate agent had agreed to pay him $3,000 if he purchased a property.

The decision from B.C. Civil Resolution Tribunal member Peter Mennie was issued and posted online Monday.

The case dealt with Shailesh Patel's claim against his Realtor Gaurav Maini, which Mennie summarizes in his decision as follows:

"Mr. Patel says Mr. Maini promised to pay him $3,000 if he purchased a property. Mr. Patel says he purchased the property, however Mr. Maini has not paid him $3,000. Mr. Maini says he never offered to pay Mr. Patel $3,000. Mr. Maini says that this was a misunderstanding and the $3,000 payment was actually an offer by the property’s seller to reduce the price of the property."

The decision does not say where in B.C. the property is located, but it notes that Patel took possession of the home in late April 2022.

Leading up to the purchase, Patel made an offer on the property – through Maini – that was subject to an inspection. When the inspection revealed "many issues requiring repairs," Patel and Maini sought a reduction in price from the seller.

The dispute between the parties arose from this effort. Patel told the tribunal he was unsatisfied with the seller's offer of a $3,000 reduction, and that Maini called him to offer him a $3,000 payment if he accepted the seller's reduced offer. He submitted a text message he sent to Maini as evidence of his position that a $3,000 reduction was unacceptable to him.

"Mr. Maini says that he never offered to pay Mr. Patel $3,000 to purchase the property," the decision reads.

"He says Mr. Patel misunderstood their conversation and mistakenly believed that Mr. Maini would be paying him $3,000 when it was the seller who agreed to reduce the price by $3,000."

Maini drafted an addendum to the sales agreement reducing the purchase price by $3,000, and Patel signed it and proceeded with the purchase.

While Patel provided documents showing that Maini intended to pay him a $3,000 referral fee in exchange for not pursuing legal action, Mennie found this offer was protected by "settlement privilege."

"Settlement privilege exists to encourage settlement by allowing people to make admissions during negotiations without fear that those admissions will later be used as evidence against them in a civil proceeding like a CRT dispute," the tribunal member's decision reads.

"I place no weight on these documents."

Instead, Mennie considered the circumstances and the parties' differing accounts of what happened and concluded the most likely explanation was that Patel misunderstood what Maini told him about the seller's $3,000 price reduction.

The tribunal member found that Patel had made a "unilateral mistake," a circumstance under which a party is only entitled to compensation if there is evidence that the other party knew or should have known about the mistake, remained silent and "snapped" at the offer.

"I find Mr. Patel cannot succeed based on the law of mistake," the decision reads.

"There is no evidence that Mr. Maini was aware of Mr. Patel’s mistake at the time Mr. Patel purchased the property. Nor can I conclude that Mr. Maini ought to have been aware of Mr. Patel’s mistake. In the context of a $1.5-million real estate deal, a reasonable person would not have known that Mr. Patel would only accept the deal for a $3,000 payment."

Having reached this conclusion, Mennie dismissed the dispute.