Bankruptcy bid adds to financial woes threatening debt-ridden B.C. developer

A B.C. Developer who has already risked gaol clip for weakness to amount strip about the finances behind her lavish lifestyle now faces a possible bankruptcy order over a multimillion-dollar mortgage she guaranteed on prime property in the heart of Vancouver's Cambie Corridor.

According to B.C. Supreme Court documents filed earlier this month, TCC Mortgage Holdings advanced more than $67.6 million to companies controlled by Helen Chan Sun to develop a 1.3-hectare plot of land south of Oakridge known as the Shawn Oaks site.

The property currently hosts 72 late-'60s-era townhomes, which Sun had hoped to transform into a booming development boasting two 30-storey-plus towers and 180 units of social housing.

But more than a year after a judge put the project into foreclosure and ordered the sale of the property, court documents claim the real estate company hired to market Shawn Oaks hasn't received a single offer for the land.

And TCC Mortgage Holdings wants a bankruptcy order against Sun, who the company claims hasn't paid a penny back against a debt now worth $78.1 million and counting.

The proceedings are the latest chapter in a complicated web of financial proceedings involving Sun in both B.C. Supreme Court and the Tax Court of Canada, where she is fighting a $6-million tax bill that includes penalties for allegedly underreporting more than $5 million worth of income.

Sun owns Landmark Premiere Properties Ltd., a company that, in turn, creates other corporations to buy and manage properties identified for future development.

Sun and Landmark invested heavily in properties located in an area once considered Vancouver's hottest real estate prospect, the so-called Cambie Corridor, supercharged by the $6.5-billion redevelopment of the Oakridge site meant to house nearly 6,000 residents in 14 towers.

But that was before the downturn that saw condo prices slump last year as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation warned that 2,500 new condos were sitting unsold and empty in Metro Vancouver — double the number for 2024.

Sun's fortunes appeared to turn with the market. In 2018, she declared her personal net worth at $94 million — a figure that had dropped to $21 million by 2023, according to a statement filed that year.

Creditors have forced two of Landmark's properties in the Cambie Corridor — including Shawn Oaks — into receivership.

According to court documents, Sun and Landmark have been found liable for more than $150 million of debt.

TCC Mortgage Holdings is the second creditor to seek a bankruptcy order against her.

The other bankruptcy application was filed by another creditor last year in relation to debts of $45 million.

In an affidavit filed in response to that application, Sun claimed "nearly all the money that I have accumulated over my lifetime has been invested through Landmark and the Landmark companies in their various real estate projects."

"The only assets I personally own of any value are my equity in those companies which own various development properties in Metro Vancouver and shareholder's loans to those companies whose equity is represented through my shareholdings and shareholder's loans," Sun wrote.

Filings in both bankruptcy claims speculate on the impact the legal proceedings themselves could have on the marketing of Sun's properties.

Landmark also owns the remaining inventory of units at Foster Martin, a multi-tower, multi-phase White Rock condo project Sun claims would generate "significant cash proceeds on completion."

But she warned that being declared bankrupt could give pre-sale purchasers at Foster Martin an opportunity to "rescind their purchase contract or at least argue that position."

A company that provides the insurance that allows deposits to be released for development echoed those concerns in another response, saying that insured deposits totalling more than $18.5 million have been released into the Foster Martin project.

"There is a material risk that Ms. Sun's bankruptcy would allow 93 pre-sale purchasers of the Foster Martin Project to rescind their purchase contracts," the company argues.

"The loss of those sales (worth approximately $131 million) would jeopardize recovery prospects for Landmark's White Rocks' creditors generally, and would likely crystallize a payout liability of more than $18.5 million for [the insurance company]."

As part of the latest bankruptcy application, TCC Mortgage Holdings is seeking a sealing order to prevent the public from seeing "confidential information" concerning the value of the Shawn Oaks lands as well as efforts to market and sell the property.

"The marketing and sales processes for the lands would be impaired if the appraisal and Colliers' marketing reports were made publicly available," an affidavit written in support of the sealing order reads.

"For example, if made public, a prospective purchaser would be unlikely to submit an offer at a price in excess of appraised value and in light of the market response, even if they believed the lands to be worth substantially more."

In legal proceedings, Sun has claimed to be "cash poor" — insisting she earns less than $70,000 a year and that her only assets are the equity she holds in her companies.

But courts have noted her fondness for designer purchases and luxury vehicles.

In December 2024, one judge said "despite her evidence that she has a modest annual income ... Ms. Sun leads a lavish lifestyle making regular purchases at luxury stores, which are indicative of someone whose income well exceeds the $60,000 to $70,000 she claims to make on an annual basis."

According to those filings, Sun was associated with at least a dozen corporations at the time and spent nearly half a million dollars each year on "personal living expenditures" — yet she claimed total income of $31,315 in 2013 and $40,066 in 2014.

Documents filed by the Canada Revenue Agency note that she also purchased and disposed of two Vancouver residential properties during that period, "each valued at more than $4 million."

In March 2022, the Canada Revenue Agency concluded the audit by finding Sun had underreported her income by more than $5 million, reassessing her tax returns and slapping her with gross negligence penalties of more than $1.3 million.

Sun is appealing the tax assessment and penalties, claiming the CRA's audit "is grossly inaccurate and invalid" as it fails to account for non-taxable loans and gifts she received from family and friends.

In court documents, the CRA — represented by Shawn Oaks— disagrees.

"The Appellant earned and failed to report incomes of $3,201,350 and $2,054,536 in 2013 and 2014," the government says in its tax court filings.

"The Appellant knowingly or under circumstances amounting to gross negligence, made or participated in, assented to or acquiesced in the making of false statements or omissions in her 2013 and 2014 income tax returns by failing to report material amounts of income."

It's not the first time Sun has been accused of obfuscation in a court proceeding.

In a separate case, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Richard Fowler gave Sun a 40-day jail sentence for contempt of court last year for failing to comply with an order to pay a $3.5-million debt — an order he suspended to give Sun time to fully account for her income and expenditures.

The contempt proceedings date back to a $4.5-million mortgage GC Capital Inc. issued to a pair of companies in 2018 in relation to a failed real estate project in Burnaby.

Sun and another man guaranteed the loan, which meant that when the companies defaulted on the mortgage, GC Capital Inc. Went after the guarantors.

In 2021, Sun reached a deal with GC Capital, agreeing to pay $5.6 million in instalments. She paid approximately $3 million toward the debt, but stopped paying in the summer of 2022.

Two years later, the company obtained a judgment from a B.C. Supreme Court registrar ordering Sun to make monthly payments of $300,000 until the rest of the debt is paid off.

She offered payments of just $3,000 a month toward the debt. One judge pointed out that it would take more than 80 years to pay off the debt at that rate.

Finally, GC Capital applied to commit Sun to jail for contempt of court in November, sparking the extraordinary hearing before Fowler, who said it's clear from her lifestyle that she has not been forthcoming about her failure to make the monthly payments.

The judge gave Sun until Feb. 20 to comply or risk incarceration. No further court dates have been set in the matter at this time.

"Your client has to understand that she is hanging by a very, very, very fine thread at this point," Fowler told Sun's lawyer at the contempt hearing.

"The time to obfuscate and try to be obstructionist — that ship has sailed."

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