Halt on Vancouver condo project, costly for buyers: receiver
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 | 7:18 PM PT
CBC News
Close to 80 pre-sale purchasers of a troubled condo development in Vancouver now know how much it may cost them to hang onto their homes.
The Sophia in Vancouver's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood is 85 per cent complete but went into receivership last month.
(CBC)
The answer is in a receiver's report on the Sophia project, an 81-unit development near Main St. and E11th Ave., which was about 85 per cent complete when The Eden Group of Companies, halted construction last month.
According to the report by the receiver, The Bowra Group, which was filed in the B.C. Supreme Court on March 11, it will cost $9.2 million to complete construction, if and when work on the building resumes.
In order to fund the construction process, it is suggested in the report that the pre-sale price paid by condominium purchasers, from January 2005 to November 2006, be increased to 90 per cent of the current market value of the building units.
Due to soaring real estate prices, the buyers will have to come up with an average of $84,600 more than they originally paid to keep their homes, the report recommends.
A purchaser, who spoke to CBC, said early buyers now stand to lose the profit they hoped to gain by getting in early and waiting for construction to be completed.
As buyers digest the contents of the report, the receiver has asked for a meeting with them to try and determine if there is a better option that could be recommended to the court. That meeting is expected to occur next week.
