Legal Blog

Damages (Real Estate)

Baldwin v. Williams 2025 Ont SCJ

Purchasers breached an agreement of purchase and sale because they could not get financing after the property had fallen in value. The vendors resold the property for a loss. The court noted that the duty to mitigate only requires the plaintiff to take reasonable steps, not all possible steps, to reduce its loss. The court ordered damages for the difference in the two sale prices and extra costs that the vendor’s incurred as a result of owning the property from the date of the original closing to the date of the final closing of the resale.

Written by Jonathan Speigel, the founding partner of Speigel Nichols Fox LLP, leads the litigation and construction practices.