A Kelowna, B.C., woman has been awarded over $740,000 after she sued a contractor, who is also one of her neighbours, over botched renovation work.

Beverly Wanklyn sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Rene Bertrand and his company Elite Lifestyle Service to complete a renovation on her lakefront property while she was on vacation in the spring of 2017, according to a recent B.C. Supreme Court decision,

But she returned to find her house “gutted,” according to the decision, and the court found Bertrand subsequently made false representations to get more money from her over the next year and a half — including money he used to renovate his own house.

Eventually, Wanklyn had to pay a different contractor nearly a million dollars to renovate the house. She sued Bertrand for breach of contract and  sought punitive damages.

The lawsuit was heard at the Vernon Law Courts. (Tom Popyk/CBC)

In a summary decision, Justice Warren Milman decided in her favour. Bertrand didn’t formally respond to the lawsuit in court.

“The defendants promised to complete the renovation, at each stage, within a time span measured in weeks and for a fixed price that kept growing, and then failed to do what they promised,” the decision reads.

“Instead, after about 18 months of inactivity, Ms. Wanklyn had received only an interior demolition, asbestos abatement, and some minor electrical and plumbing work.”

CBC News contacted Bertrand’s company for its response but has not heard back.

European vacation

Wanklyn had initially hired Bertrand to renovate her house and install a guest suite after meeting him through mutual friends, according to the decision. The two both live on Kelowna’s Manhattan Drive.

After that renovation was complete, Wanklyn and Bertrand discussed a more substantial renovation of the house, the court said.

The Kelowna woman then went on a European vacation between March 15 and April 21, 2017, with the promise that she would reside in the new guest suite when she returned and work would be finished by the May 22 long weekend.

“[Wanklyn] was expecting to arrive home to a newly-renovated house,” the decision reads.

“Instead, she was shocked to find that the house had been gutted and progress halted. Her belongings remained in storage offsite.”

Wanklyn initially demanded a refund from Bertrand, but the contractor said he had discovered rotting wood in some of the house’s support beams.

The court found that he subsequently made a series of false representations to get more money as work continued to stall on the house over the next year — including by falsely claiming that he had approached the City of Kelowna for permits and saying the city had concluded the house needed to be torn down.

The contractor urged the home’s owner not to contact the city, according to the court, which said they made false claims about the city’s involvement in the renovations. (Tom Popyk/CBC)

In July 2018, Wanklyn met with Bertrand and said he had been dealing with an environmental consultant for months to proceed with the stalled project. He also urged them not to contact the city over the issue.

But the court found that Bertrand had only approached an environmental consultant a few days prior, and Wanklyn subsequently demanded receipts from Bertrand.

The court found that the defendants had spent only around $85,800 on the project, around $17,300 of which was directly related to Wanklyn’s house.

The B.C. Supreme Court reduced the amount of punitive damages Wanklyn sought. (Peter Scobie/CBC)

“In his examination for discovery, Mr. Bertrand acknowledged that the defendants were working on four to six other projects at the same time, including a project at his own home, also on Manhattan Drive,” the decision reads.

“Mr. Bertrand further acknowledged that the defendants had commingled her payments with their other funds and used them for those other projects.”

Wanklyn eventually had to hire another contractor to fix up her home at a cost of $995,000.

The court awarded her the cost of her contract, subtracting around $30,000 for minor work that Bertrand’s company actually conducted, which amounted to around $730,000.

She was also awarded $10,000 in punitive damages, though she had sought up to $50,000 to “punish the defendants for their reprehensible conduct.”

But the court disagreed with that figure.

“I am not persuaded that the defendants set out from the beginning to convert Ms. Wanklyn’s payments without ever intending to complete the project,” Milman wrote.

“Rather, it appears that they intended to do the work eventually but were incapable of properly managing the project or seeing it through to completion.”