The building was long owned by the Sheward family but dad died and mom went under curatorship.
The curator rented it out at a relatively low rent from 2006 to Serge Dufour and Christiane Cote.
The elderly owner died and ownership changed hands, being handed down to Alberta-based Gordon Sheward and Wendy Takats.
They offered tenants Dufour and Cote a chance to buy the property. The tenants offered $227,000 but the owners were looking more at about $300 k + so the owners declined.
In November 2010, the two owners hired Deakin Realty to sell the property.
This was no easy sale, however, as the tenants Dufour and Cote - likely still bitter that their offer had been nixed - stonewalled and attached many conditions on the rules of showing it to prospective buyers.
Deakin had all sorts of trouble getting the tenants to accept the papers proving her legal mandate and later in the affair the tenants would demand additional documents, further slowing the process.
As a result, it was almost impossible to arrange a visit, a reality that everybody involved would later regret.
The owners aimed to get it sold before Dec. 31, to allow new purchasers the ability to take possession July 1 the following year.
Someone named Mansour was one of the half-dozen people who managed to get a visit.
Not only was it difficult to get an appointment to see the house but court documents suggest that the tenants were pulling stunts such as turning the lights off before a visitor even left a room.
They said they did this because they wanted to make sure nobody could walk into the house and see their work documents.
Mansour offered $315,000 for the property but wanted his wife to visit too. But that additional visit was too difficult to organize due to the multiplicity of conditions that the tenants had made upon visits.
So Mansour retracted his offer and the vendors eventually accepted an offer of $300,000 without condition of inspection, from Amir Hashemi.
After the sale, the owners sued Serge Dufour and Christiane Cote and won a $49,000 decision 10 days ago.
The tenants will have to pay a hefty price for not allowing a freer access to the realtor.
Deakin, for her troubles, appears to have received a commission but not much more for her headaches.