Is a vendor required to mitigate damages by negotiating with or accepting an offer from a defaulting purchaser?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Showroom Homes Inc. v Cowie, 2017 BCSC 1919 (CanLII):

I accept the plaintiff's argument. First, the plaintiff is not required to attempt to mitigate by accepting an offer which it perceives to be of less value to it than the original contract. That is clearly the case here. The plaintiff referred to the decision in Mackenzie v. Dougherty, 2017 BCSC 931, for the proposition that a vendor is not required to mitigate damages by negotiating with or accepting an offer from a defaulting purchaser. It is evident that there is no such broad principle. Obviously every case depends on its facts. But here it is not surprising that the plaintiff did not accept an offer without a deposit from a numbered company controlled by the same individual who had defaulted on the earlier contract and had previously failed to pay the deposit.

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