B.C. woman whose storage locker was reassigned 9 years after condo purchase sues realtor

A condo storage locker was at the centre of a small claims dispute in B.C. (IMage credit: Shutterstock)

A B.C. woman whose storage locker was reassigned nine years after she bought her condo has lost her bid to sue the realtor for $5,000 for negligence and misrepresentation.

The province's Civil Resolution Tribunal decision on the dispute was posted online Wednesday, outlining the reasons why the owner's claim was dismissed.

Cindy Cheung purchased the property in 2013 through realtor Man Kit Yuen, the tribunal heard. The contract of purchase and sale listed a particular locker associated to the condo. But in 2022, the strata manager told her she had been using the wrong locker and she was made to move her belongings to one she said was "much smaller,” according to the decision.

She alleged that the realtor was negligent because he both "misrepresented information about the locker" and "failed to confirm the locker assigned to the condo." By so doing, she argued, he had breached his professional obligations and caused her to suffer a loss.

Tribunal member Micah Carmody found the evidence showed that the realtor had taken reasonable steps to verify the locker assignment. Those included emailing and calling the strata manager to confirm it and informing Cheung that lockers were designated as common property and could be reassigned "at any time," the decision says. After being given this information, Carmody notes, Cheung "did not express any concern about that information and continued with her purchase."

The tribunal also found that there was no evidence that Cheung suffered a loss and none was provided to support her claim for $5,000 in damages.

"She provided no photos, measurements, or other evidence in support" of her claim that the new locker was smaller than the old one," Carmody noted. Further, damages in cases of negligence involving realtors are assessed in terms of the difference in value between "the property at the time of purchase with its true attributes and what was actually paid," Carmody explained.

"Ms. Cheung has not provided any evidence about how differences in locker volume would affect the value of her $348,000 condo," he added.

Cheung's claim for legal fees in the amount of $910, for which she submitted no invoices or receipts as evidence, was also dismissed.