Brokerage, builder in court over condo sales commissions

A legal claim by a real estate brokerage alleging a Toronto condominium developer is not paying commissions it owes may be the first public example of simmering tensions in the residential real estate industry boiling over as the market finds new lows.

At issue is $777,139.43, which represents half of the commissions for more than 40 apartment sales brokered by The Condo Store Realty Inc., (TCS) one of the largest brokers of preconstruction condominiums in Toronto. All the sales were for the Junction Point condo project by Gairloch Developments. The developer, in turn, has countered that TCS “misrepresented” the nature of some of those sales, five in particular that one of the brokerage’s business partners defaulted on. According to Gairloch, that default means TCS “breached its duty of honesty and good faith in contractual performance.”