Bob Mackin
The Surrey-Guildford BC Liberal candidate is denying allegations he committed fraud, extortion and forgery in a botched 2017 real estate deal.
Dave Hans (BC Liberals)
Dave Hans, aka Baldev Singh Hans, is one of two defendants in a B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit filed January 2019 by a businessman and a numbered company over a $12.75 million deal to buy seven lots from Apolla Development on Ravine Road near King George Highway and 132 Street.
Hans, a professional engineer appointed to Surrey’s board of variance, is running against NDP incumbent Garry Begg in the Oct. 24 election. Hans said he disclosed the lawsuit to party headquarters before his candidacy was green-lit.
“I’m a law-abiding citizen and I believe in the Canadian court system, Canadian law, I don’t think anybody can cheat with me,” Hans told theBreaker.news. “I sued [Aditya Sood] because he was trying to cheat with me.”
In December 2018, Hans filed a lawsuit and certificate of pending litigation in New Westminster Supreme Court against businessman Sood, alleging Sood violated a joint venture, assigned the land contract to a third party and kept the profit. A Supreme Court master agreed to remove the CPL and ordered $800,000 from the sale to be held in trust.
Then, the following month, Sood and 1139314 B.C. Ltd. filed a claim in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver against real estate agent Karamvir “Kam” Pawar and Hans.
Ravine Road lands (Cushman Wakefield)
Sood’s trial brief, filed last April, said he and the numbered company ultimately proceeded to buy the property after text messages and oral communications with the defendants about a partnership or joint venture never resulted in a binding agreement.
“[Hans and Pawar] never put up any of their own funds toward the purchase of the investment property and never participated in developing it, but when they learned that the plaintiffs had sold it for a profit, they developed and executed a plan to have Mr. Hans file a suit and CPL against it only days before the closing of the transaction, for the intended purpose of causing the plaintiffs to fear losing the sale and therefore hastily pay him a large and unjust sum in settlement,” reads the trial brief.
“As part of their plan, the defendants forged the signatures of the plaintiffs on an assignment agreement, dating back to the original purchase of the investment property, which purported to assign the purchase for $1.”
None of the allegations has been proven in court.
Dave Hans and Andrew Wilkinson (Twitter)
In his response filed in February 2019, Hans denied allegations that he made threats and denied he created a draft assignment with forged signatures.
“As far as the details are concerned,” Hans said in an interview, “the matter is in front of the court and I’m looking forward to the court proceeding and determinations.”
Pawar denied Hans filed the December 2018 lawsuit “to extort or otherwise unlawfully pressure the plaintiffs into making concessions based on false allegations or forged documents and, in any event, the defendant Pawar did not participate in any such conduct.”
Pawar also claimed that Sood abruptly terminated communications with Hans as a result of a personal dispute with Hans.
Sood’s case against Hans includes a report from a handwriting expert. He has also filed a complaint with the Surrey RCMP. Sood appeared Oct. 7 on KPPI Sher E Punjab Radio, which prompted a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer acting on Hans’s behalf.
What became of the land?
The Bowra Group was appointed receiver last July for Conian Developments’ partially completed, six-storey La Voda condominium project on Ravine Road. A numbered company incorporated by Quadra Homes successfully bid $27 million to real estate firm Cushman Wakefield, pending court approval.
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