A Brampton man accused of defrauding more than a dozen would-be homeowners is now facing additional criminal charges, while a civil lawyer says dozens more alleged victims have recently come forward claiming they were also defrauded.
Moiz Kunwar, 28, is accused of taking deposits for pre-construction homes he was not authorized to sell, which were built by a legitimate developer he had no connection with.
Last month, Kunwar was charged with fraud over $5,000 and possession of property obtained by crime. That’s on top of two counts of each charge already laid against him in February and March of this year, according to Brampton court records. The criminal charges against him have yet to be tested in court.
Now, Peel Regional Police are warning the public about Kunwar.
“Members of the public are urged to avoid any transactional interactions with Moiz Kunwar,” spokesperson Const. Tyler Bell-Morena said.
He says the fraud bureau is continuing to investigate new and existing allegations of fraud involving Kunwar “relating to instances where he reportedly misrepresented himself as being a member of a real estate development company.”
Bell-Morena says police believe there are other victims who have not yet come forward and are encouraging anyone with information to contact Peel police’s fraud department or report details anonymously through Crime Stoppers.
Toronto lawyer Andrew Ballantyne is representing seven plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit against Kunwar. Since CBC Toronto’s reporting on Kunwar’s criminal charges in May, he says he’s received phone calls from 40 to 50 people who believe they are also victims of the alleged real estate scam.
Ballantyne says he’s working with the majority of them to help get their deposits back.
“A lot of these people are regular, everyday people … [who] have given their life savings and it’s tragic to see,” he said.
Three civil lawsuits filed in Ontario Superior Court paint a similar picture and accuse Kunwar of collecting deposits for pre-construction homes across the Greater Toronto Area by using a corporate name nearly identical to that of a legitimate developer he was not associated with.
The lawsuits claim he took deposits for homes that he had no right to sell, leaving the buyers without their new homes and out tens of thousands of dollars in deposit money.
The plaintiffs in the three civil suits claim they gave Kunwar a total of nearly $570,000 in deposits and are suing him in hopes of getting that money back, plus damages.
In an email to CBC Toronto, Kunwar said he intends to defend himself against all charges and allegations against him, but did not comment further because the matters are before the courts.
In a statement of defence in one of the civil claims against him, Kunwar denied all allegations of fraud and that he’d ever represented himself as a real estate investor, broker, developer or mortgage lender.
Instead, he claimed he was “simply a sales associate” who received some payments on behalf of his superiors but did not deposit them for his own personal use. The court filing said Kunwar believed the transactions were lawful and legitimate.
CBC Toronto first began investigating Kunwar in 2022 after a local realtor flagged a suspicious sales pitch that was circulating in Toronto’s Black community for below-market rate pre-construction homes with low mortgage rates.
As part of that investigation, CBC Toronto spoke to multiple people who claimed they paid Kunwar or his associates at the company Paradise Development Homes Limited (PDHL) deposits for homes.
The 2022 investigation found the homes were being sold by a legitimate and licensed developer, Paradise Homes Homes Inc., but despite the nearly identical name, the licensed developer had no ties to Kunwar or PDHL.
In a statement at the time, Paradise Developments Inc. said Kunwar had no authority or legal right to sell any of the builder’s properties.
Kunwar told CBC Toronto he passed on information about the deals to people he knew but denied taking deposits.
Kunwar continued to take deposits for pre-construction homes as recently as last spring, according to Ballantyne.
He says because the real estate deal Kunwar was offering was so good, many were eager to tell their friends and family, who also signed up.
“It just spread like wildfire,” he said.
Ballantyne says the would-be buyers were often taken out to the development site and shown the home they were going to be purchasing.
“Eventually that unit gets built. Eventually [other] people move into that unit, the closing date comes and goes and people realize, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?'”
He says when they reach out to Kunwar they are “smoothly talked off the ledge” in order to buy more time.
“But, ultimately, there’s only so much time they can buy,” he said.
