Couple Sues Neighbors for $2.5 Million Over a House Renovated to Look Like Theirs

A Toronto couple is suing their neighbors for $2.5 million for essentially copying their house design.

Jason and Jodi Chapnik, who live in the affluent Forrest Hills neighborhood, renovated their home with a Tudor-style stonework and wood-tipped gables. The couple claims that their neighbor purchased a nearby home and renovated it to look “strikingly similar.”

The Chapniks filed a $2.5 million copyright infringement suit against their neighbor, Barbara Ann Kirshenblatt, for damages and demanding the home be redesigned.

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According to the lawsuit, the couple claims their architect-designed home is “one of the most well-known and admired houses in the Cedarvale and Forest Hill neighborhoods, in a large part due to its uniqueness.”

“A tremendous amount of skill, effort, time, judgment, care (and money) was spent across nearly seven years in terms of designing, architecting and building a unique and beautiful house,” Jason and Jodi Chapnick said in an email through their lawyer sent to the Toronto Star.

Kirshenblatt has denied copying the look of her neighbor’s home. She claimed that the house was inspired by Tudor stone cottages and she provided multiple photos in her statement of defense.

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She says the features, including the “application of a single colour, such as blue, to windows, doors and stonework, and the application of ‘Tudor’ style stonework to a façade has been common to the trade for centuries, and is not protectable by copyright.”

“The look and feel of the two properties are so divergent in overall appearance, scale and context that to the normal passerby, any meaningful visual relationship between the two residences would be difficult to associate,” Kirshenblatt’s statement of defense read.

The Chapniks and Ms. Kirshenblatt were able to reach a settlement outside of court.

“There is no admission of guilt or liability on the part of my clients, and they truly believe that they did nothing wrong,” said the Kirshenblatts’ lawyer, Jeremy Lum-Danson, in an email. “To them, the houses do not look the same.”