BC man sues luxury homes company, gets sued back for slander
A luxury home sale kicked off a roller coaster of events when Dmytro Zelman filed a $5,000 claim against Pars Luxury Homes Ltd for faulty plumbing.
Zelman and his spouse purchased their home from the company and moved in in December 2017, according to the decision from the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal. Two years later, at the beginning of 2019, they started noticing problems with their kitchen drainage system.
After investigating the issue, Zelman said that Pars Luxury Homes Ltd had negligently installed the kitchen drainage system. According to the decision, Zelman and his spouse used multiple plumbing companies which fixed the drainage issue, but they wanted compensation from the housing company.
Zelman’s spouse sought compensation in August 2020. However, when Pars Luxury Homes Ltd. did not respond to their request, they turned to court for reimbursement.
This is when things became messy. Not only did the company deny the claims of negligence, it also filed a counterclaim for $5,000 in damages for slander.
Yikes.
In the company’s fight against the initial claim, luxury homes company owner Amir Khajavi told the court that his company was not responsible for the plumbing issues because Zelman’s new home warranty had expired by the time the plumbing issues were discovered.
Unfortunately for Zelman, the court found this argument to be true. The court found that by the date Zelman sought compensation for the faulty plumbing, the limitation period on his claim was filed out of time.
His claim against the housing company was dismissed. The court did recognize Zelman’s claims that his situation warranted “consideration in the interests of justice and fairness.” Still, the court wrote that it did not have the discretion to not apply the Limitation Act.
Then, it was down to the counterclaim.
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Within its counterclaim, Pars Luxury Homes Ltd argued that Zelman should pay $5,000 in damages because he caused them distress, years of harassment, and slander, and that he even trespassed.
The court quickly dismissed the company’s claims of distress and harassment on the basis that it is a corporation and, as such, can’t have feelings and suffer intangible injuries.
The slander claims were also dismissed, but this time because of jurisdiction. The decision noted that the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal has no jurisdiction for libel or slander in its small claims jurisdiction and, therefore, couldn’t resolve that aspect of the counterclaim.
Lastly, the trespassing claims were also dismissed because Pars Luxury Homes Ltd failed to provide any evidence of Zelman’s alleged trespassing.
Ultimately, the court dismissed the claims from Zelman and the counterclaims from Pars Luxury Homes Ltd.
That’s one long court proceeding for neither party to have a successful outcome. Like we said, what a rollercoaster.