Buyers say they lost life savings to a Saskatchewan company selling luxury vacation condos

This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and CTV News Saskatoon.

In 2022, Tanya Frisk-Welburn and her husband bought what they hoped would be a dream home in Mexico.

The seller was a company called Caban Condos whose website described it as “two guys from Saskatchewan” building condominiums near idyllic seaside locations in the Yucatan peninsula.

Frisk-Welburn, who lives in Bengough, Sask., stumbled upon the company’s advertisements while planning a holiday in 2020. She was about to retire, and liked the idea of working with a local company.

“We put down a whole ton of money,” Frisk-Welburn said. “It's my retirement fund.”

But when Frisk-Welburn and her husband arrived to take possession of the condo in December 2022 — when they were promised it would be finished — it was still being renovated. They tried again a year later, and it still wasn’t finished.

Frisk-Welburn still has no condo. She’s out nearly US$170,000 and is suing Caban Condos. And she’s not alone.

An investigation by the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and CTV News Saskatoon has found Caban Condos repeatedly failed to return promised money to buyers in its Mexican real estate projects, most of which are years behind schedule.

And in one of the company’s only completed developments, residents say they never received legal title to their property.

In many cases, the 11 groups of buyers identified by the IJF and CTV News Saskatoon say they spent their life savings or retirement funds on a Caban condo deposit. Some turned to the courts, where their allegations have yet to be tested. Others joined growing online communities of dissatisfied customers to share information and warn away future buyers.

Caban Condos Mexico, incorporated in Saskatchewan as Regal Property Developments Ltd., is owned by Corman Park, Sask. resident Mike Delaire.

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Delaire blamed delays on issues with a primary contractor in Mexico, rising construction costs and the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the company “grew way too fast” but denied he defrauded buyers.

“I’m here, we’re in communication with the clients, we’re on site and we continue our business. So we haven’t run off with anything,” Delaire said. He said his company would finish construction on its projects within eight months and would deliver title to all buyers.

He claims dissatisfied customers have spread “conspiracy theories” and “outright lies” about his company.

But Frisk-Welburn and other customers say Delaire has dodged requests for refunds or updates on their investments. In some cases, buyers say they have waited more than a year to receive promised refunds or reimbursements from Delaire.

Frisk-Welburn says Delaire “just ceased all communication” when she and her husband asked why their condo was not complete.

Frisk-Welburn says she never would have bought property in Mexico if the builder hadn’t been local.

“‘We’re just two guys from Saskatchewan’ — we’re just — that means, ‘trust us.’ And that’s what I did. I put my full trust in these people, and now I don’t have a condo,” she said.

Mike Delaire in a 2020 interview with CTV News. (CTV News)

The pitch

Caban Condos’ website says the company was “born on a beach in southern Mexico in the summer of 2010.”

Regal Property Ltd., though, wasn’t incorporated until 2017. Delaire partnered with Parrish Kondra, a fellow Saskatonian he met at a jet ski rally.

Since then, Caban Condos has marketed at least six real estate developments across the Yucatan peninsula, which it bills as “high quality” housing for Canadian and American buyers.

Business, at one point, was booming. In a 2020 interview with CTV News Saskatoon, Delaire said some customers were buying condos “site unseen.”

But so far, only two of the company’s six projects have actually been completed. The rest are, in some cases, more than a year behind schedule.

Some buyers have lost hope of recouping their investment. Others have had to dramatically alter plans after a promised condo was never completed.

William Ambery, a former New York City detective, bought a penthouse condo in an upcoming development after connecting with Kondra in 2020.

Ambery sent Delaire more than US$164,000, half the price of the unit. Ambery’s contract said he would have his condo by July 2022.

But it was never finished. In messages shared with the IJF, Ambery repeatedly asked Delaire and Kondra when he could expect his condo to be ready.

In November 2021, Delaire apologized for the delays and explained that Caban Condos was having problems with “COVID, supplies and labourers.”

The man in charge of that project says it was more than that.

Blair Warren said he was hired by Caban Condos as a project manager for real estate projects in Yucatan. Warren, who has known Kondra since he was 18, said they had persistent issues with its primary contractor.

“I caught the workers smoking weed, smoking meth, no safety gear, working randomly on different things all the time,” he said.

The company switched to a different contractor for its phase 4 development, Warren said.

But different issues emerged. Warren said Delaire asked him to personally withdraw money to pay workers, supposedly because wire transfers from Canada would not arrive on time.

Delaire said the primary contractor repeatedly hiked the price for the building, which contributed to delays and rising costs. In an email, Delaire said he eventually fired that contractor because “he was not meeting progress and could not explain to me where the large amounts of money we were paying was going.”

Kondra didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. Online, Kondra’s website still markets real estate services in Mexico, offering to help clients navigate the “vibrant market with confidence.”

Ambery referred to Kondra as a “used car salesman.”

“But in this case, you’re not even getting a car,” he said.

Resellers

Some frustrated Caban customers eventually exercised contract options allowing them to claim a refund. Others say Delaire agreed to sell their condos to new owners.

But none of the buyers interviewed by the IJF and CTV Saskatoon got all their money back — even after different people bought their former condos.

Dallas accountant Jim Matthews bought a unit in a Caban development in June 2019, which he and his wife planned to make their new home after they retired.

The contract promised an occupancy date of June 2021. They sold their home in Dallas and relocated to Mexico in preparation for the move.

Because of delays, Matthews said Delaire offered to sell him a second unit in a different, finished development that was also in San Crisanto.

Matthews bought that unit and sold his unfinished unit to Erika Gonzalez, a business owner from California. Matthews did not feel comfortable taking the money himself, so Gonzalez says she sent the full deposit of US$149,000 to Delaire.

Matthews said he never got that money back, and Gonzalez says her unit was never completed.

According to the Public Registry of Commerce, the Mexican counterpart of Regal Property Developments took out a $5-million-peso (worth just over C$318,000 at the time) loan on the phase 2 land in February 2021. Matthews said he was not informed of that.

Matthews is currently living in phase 1, but without legal title as promised in his contract. As a result, Matthews says his wife moved back to Texas to take her old job as a nursing home specialist.

“We've been living apart since November, because we're saving money to buy a house in Texas [...] just in case the worst happens, we lose it all,” Matthews said.

Delaire said not all buyers are dissatisfied with his company.

Saskatoon resident Don Garman, for example, bought a condo in the same development as Matthews in 2019.

Garman confirmed he had not received title for that unit but says he believes he will get it eventually. He pointed out that, in the meantime, Delaire’s company had shouldered some of the building’s maintenance costs.

Garman said Caban customers for other projects had legitimate grievances. But he believes some negative online reviews cross the line into misinformation.

“There’s a percentage that’s justified, but there’s another percentage that’s not justified and it’s further false,” Garman said.

Maria Lorena Marelli and her husband Steffen Ulrich bought a condo in Caban’s phase 4 development in June 2022 and were told they could move in as soon as December.

By April 2023, the condo still wasn’t finished and Marelli began to experience health problems.

Their contract did not allow for a refund, but they contacted Delaire and Kondra asking if their unit could be sold to a different buyer.

In June 2023, Ulrich and Marelli learned from a social media page that their unit had been resold.

When they contacted Delaire, he confirmed the sale and told Ulrich and Marelli he would send them paperwork soon to finalize the transfer. But it never came.

Ulrich and Marelli shared roughly 14 months of email and text correspondence with Delaire, asking when he would return their US$189,000 investment.

Delaire repeatedly said he would return the money. So far, he has sent them only a fraction of it.

In an email, Delaire stressed the deposit was non-refundable but said he was “working with these clients” and other customers to pay them back.

“We’re not running and hiding,” Delaire said in an interview.

Marelli and Ulrich say they were only able to raise the money to buy the condo by selling their business. Later, they also had to sell an apartment they owned in the nearby city of Merida. Now, the couple say they are looking for new jobs.

“We had to change absolutely everything,” Marelli said. “We had to sell our house. Now we are renting, and we have to change our whole future.”

Buying it back

In Saskatchewan, three separate groups of buyers filed lawsuits against Delaire and his company, including Frisk-Welburn and Paul Jellicoe, a paediatric surgeon based in Winnipeg.

In his March 2024 statement of claim, Jellicoe accuses Delaire of unjust enrichment and breach of contract for failing to fulfill his repeated promises to repay after Jellicoe signed a cancellation agreement.

Delaire filed a response in May, arguing neither he nor Regal Property Developments Ltd. are party to the contract, since it was signed with Regal’s Mexican counterpart — even though the Canadian company is that company’s primary shareholder.

Other jilted buyers have taken matters into their own hands.

Caban Condos’ largest development to date is its phase 4 project, a 54-unit condominium project in San Crisanto.

Delaire had entered into a purchase agreement to buy Dolphin Developments, the company that originally owned that land, which would have been a key part of completing the project.

That deal fell through in April 2024, but Caban Condos’ website still lists the project under the name “San Crisanto Beach Villas.” The company continues to advertise units for sale at that development.

Ambery and three other buyers said a group of people who bought those condos have since banded together to take the project over. The IJF and CTV Saskatoon contacted one of the former customers leading that effort. They declined to comment, citing ongoing work to finish buying the property.

Ambery said the new plan to finish the building would require each buyer to kick in at least US$40,000 on top of what they committed to paying Caban Condos. In theory, that means buyers could have their condos after all — albeit at a higher price than they expected.

But some are struggling to find the money.

London, Ont. resident Ricardo Mahecha bought a unit in that building in 2021.

Mahecha asked his daughter, Maria Mahecha, to speak to the IJF and CTV News Saskatoon on his behalf because of a language barrier. Maria said her father already refinanced his home to raise the US$210,000 needed to pay Caban. He has since suffered a workplace accident that has kept him from his job. Now, he’s struggling to raise the last cash he needs.

“It’s more mental than anything,” Maria said. “He’s really stressed out. Like, am I going to see my dream to completion?”