When you think about cottages and trailers, relaxation comes to mind. A place to run away to and leave stress behind. That is the opposite experience for Pepper Shaxon and Chris Chapman recently.
The London couple received a phone call this week from a concerned neighbour, telling them that someone had forced entry into their tiny Turkey Point cottage and were loading all their belongings into a moving truck. The couple was quick to react, immediately driving to their tiny cottage. Chapman explains what they found when they arrived.
Richard Bajuk purchased 47 Cedar Drive in Turkey Point, after it was put up for sale earlier this year, by the owner Sean McCormick. Shaxon had a long-standing lease agreement with McCormick. She paid for a tiny cottage to be built on the property and has receipts from the construction. Before that, she had parked her trailer on the property as well.
Previously when the couple heard a buyer had been found they reached out. According to Shaxon, Bajuk verbally agreed to allow her to stay for the summer of 2024. When we spoke to Bajuk about that, he said this was a misunderstanding and that he did not speak to Shaxon directly.
Bajuk explained his sale agreement with the seller included all, but one trailer on the property. The rest and their contents were his. He went on to say the movers and the forced entry into Shaxon’s cottage was arranged by the seller, Sean McCormick. However, the men doing the moving are believed to be employed by Bajuk, and he did come to the address while the moving truck was blocked in, claiming the contents and building were his.
Further, after speaking to one of the realtors involved in the sale, we learned that the deal had not closed when the locks were broken to remove Shaxon’s property.
Following this ordeal the couple began to explore what recourse they had. They reached out to the Landlord Tenant Board, but unfortunately the Residential Tenancies Act does not apply to seasonal use units. So, what next?
Shaxon and Chapman have removed their belongings, but there is still the matter of the sizable loss of investment in the tiny cottage. Whatever comes of this, the couple have lost a seasonal get away and Shaxon has lost her trust in the community.
We were unable to reach the seller Sean McCormick, for comment.
Written by Jeremy Hall