Millions in deals could be on the verge of unravelling at the exclusive Trump tower with just a few weeks to go until Toronto’s newest luxe hotel and condo development is slated to open its doors.

A number of condo purchasers — including Irish investors who reportedly bought a whole floor of the five-star project being built by Talon International Development Inc. — have tried to back out of deals inked pre-recession.

Recently a U.S. buyer — citing two years of delays in the 60-storey project and “financial difficulties” — won the right from the Ontario Court of Appeal to renege on his $709,000 condo/hotel suite purchase at the landmark Bay and Adelaide property.

The decision could have serious implications for Toronto’s overheated condo industry given the record number of condos — 43,000 units — slated for the GTA.

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It may also give ammunition to investors, jittery about the state of the world economy and fearful Toronto’s condo market may be heading for a stumble, if not a fall.

“The lesson here is that developers have to be very careful to set a realistic (completion) date or unhappy purchasers may take advantage of the failure to complete and successfully terminate,” says Toronto lawyer Bob Aaron, who is representing a U.K. couple refusing to make final payments on an $830,588 Trump condo/hotel unit.

While not happy about the November 8 ruling, Talon has returned the $212,700 deposit to U.S. buyer Richard Schneeberg, who refused to sign off on further extensions.

Other buyers have tried the same tactic, The Star has learned, but as a way of getting out of deals no longer feasible because the purchaser has lost money on the stock markets or is fearful the economics no longer make sense.

Talon insists delays in the 261-unit project were unavoidable — 148 days were lost to weather alone — and that just a “handful” of buyers have tried to renege on deals penned five or six years ago.

“We have absolutely no intention of giving money back. And we are going to enforce the agreements to the fullest,” says Talon chief executive Val Levitan.

Second thoughts are “very normal” in condo projects, says Talon chairman Alex Shnaider, a Russian-born steel-industry magnate who raised eyebrows back in 2005 when he announced Canada’s first Trump tower at condo prices more than double everything else being built in Toronto.

“It’s up to purchasers to make an informed decision. They aren’t buying cupcakes. I would imagine these people are intelligent enough to go to their lawyer or investment consultant to discuss what they are buying.”

But the doubling of real estate prices across the GTA over the last decade, coupled with the hottest condo construction market in the world, has created a get-rich-quick mentality, say lawyers and realtors. Many buyers aren’t even running the complex contracts past lawyers first, as seems to have happened here.

“I have no doubt that the magic of the Trump name and the pictures of this fabulous tower in downtown Toronto had a certain appeal. People thought they could make a lot of money,” says Aaron.

One Toronto realtor has been working behind the scenes to help a “distraught” client who put $160,000 down on a 578 square foot unit in Trump and still owes more than $450,000 but can’t get bank financing.

The agent has considered rallying other buyers in a “mass walkaway” from deals.

Toronto realtors who specialize in the condo market have become concerned about the significant number of “assignments” being floated in the “underground market” right now — purchasers who are looking to unload Trump units before final financing is due.

While assignments are common in the condo industry — they are a form of flipping units where initial purchasers can often make big money before having to pay out ongoing costs like taxes and maintenance fees — this project is proving to be problematic for investors in another way.

“These are a new beast in the city,” as the first condo/hotel development where buyers are purchasing their own key to what is really a hotel unit, says Jason Friesen, a mortgage underwriter with The Calum Ross Team.

“None of the “A” lenders will touch these things,” says Friesen.

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Levitan disputes that but concedes this project is more complicated than most because the condo units are considered commercial rather than residential, subject to higher down payments, interest rates and even municipal taxes.

The U.K. couple has now walked away from their $265,000 deposit, which Shnaider says isn’t all bad.

“A lot of them bought a long time ago at very cheap prices. We are going to resell (the reneged units) at higher prices. It’s actually good for us.”