It looks like the lawsuit filed by George Dengin against his business partner Mark Chandler has not stopped construction of H+H at Homer and Helmken downtown or the construction of Garden City in Richmond. It is however stopping people from moving into the recently completed Tribeca condo development. There was a news story on bctv the other night about some of the fun and games going on in Vancouver’s condo market.
The seedier underside of Greater Vancouver’s housing boom is being exposed Monday night by a series of lawsuits and counter-suites between some of the city’s highest rollers. The main combatants, two developers both with checkered backgrounds, and now the battle has drawn in a man who’s become known as Vancouver’s Condo King (Bob Rennie).
Construction on H+H and the Garden City condo towers continue despite the lawsuit, leans and a stop-sale order from the superintendent of real-estate. Mark Chandler claims to have been paying workers out of his own pocket for the continued construction, up until last wednesday when his lenders started to fund chandler again. Both H&H and GardenCity towers are about 70% sold, but until this lawsuit is resolved buyers may suffer the same fate as buyers at another Chandler property- Tribeca. The condo’s and Tribeca are finished and ready for people to move in, but because of the current investigation it remains empty. This means that people who have purchased units in Tribeca and given notice at their current residence will need to find a place to live until this issue is resolved.
George Dengin’s lawsuit alleges unusual or apparent dishonest conduct including chandlers alleged failure to put money into trust and selling some units twice. Bob Rennie supports dengins lawsuit – he has provided an affidavit to support Dengins claims and has stopped marketing chandler properties.
Chandlers lawyers have filed a statement of defese and a counter claim naming Bob Rennie and George Dengin and their businesses, with Chandlers defense alleging that it “struck him at a particularly vulnerable time for the purposes of trying to take over ownership of the partnership”.
The counterclaim alleges that dengin and rennie have made false allegations of wrongdoing against the Chandler and that they filed their claim “on the basis of false, or exaggerated and unsubstantiated allegations.”
In the bctv newscast Mark Chandler was quoted as saying “I feel that he’s really trying to take the keys to my company.. I thought he was a friend. I thought he was a trusted friend”.
Rennie and Dengin did not reply to that news story directly, other than Bob Rennie making a statement that he is “a marketer not a developer” and that he has “no intention of moving into developement”.
