James Un
BASc, MEng, JD
Senior Associate Lawyer
James Un is a Senior Associate Lawyer at ATAC LAW, drawn to the disputes that turn on property, contracts, and money: who owns what, who owed whom, and what the record can be made to show. His clients range from individual owners and investors to corporations, contractors, strata corporations, real estate professionals, and those engaged in development projects. He begins each matter by locating the practical source of the conflict, then judging whether the client is best served by moving directly to court, by structured negotiation, or by a resolution that makes commercial sense.
He acts in matters touching developers and pre-sale contracts, co-ownership and property transactions, commercial tenancies and strata property, and the familiar pressure points of a construction project: deficiencies, unpaid accounts, cost overruns, holdbacks, and builders liens under the Builders Lien Act. His work extends to mortgage enforcement and defence, foreclosure, certificates of pending litigation, easements and title claims, property damage, and applications for injunctions and other protective remedies. Throughout, he keeps sight of what is truly at stake for the client: the value of an asset, its financing, its possession, or the future of a development.
He is equally at ease in disputes of another character: conflicts among shareholders and partners, corporate debt and loan claims, contractual disagreements, and contested estates. Such files have raised allegations of invalid mortgages, disputes over jointly held assets, challenges to estate property, and the urgent need to preserve funds before they can be moved. James carries a matter from the first assessment of the evidence through pleadings, document production, applications, mediation and arbitration, and trial, appearing before the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the Residential Tenancy Branch and preparing the materials that support proceedings on appeal.
His method rarely changes. He reconstructs the deal, how it was put together, what each party undertook, and which of those facts a court can be shown through reliable records, and from that foundation he weighs litigation risk, cost, and timing against the client's broader financial and personal priorities. Whether the object is urgent relief, the defence of a property or business interest, or a negotiated exit, James holds every matter to a single standard: only excellence will do.
- Member, Law Society of British Columbia
- Bachelor of Applied Science, Simon Fraser University – 2014
- Master of Engineering, Simon Fraser University – 2016
- Juris Doctor, University of New Brunswick – 2019
- Succeeded in appeal before the Court of Appeal for a legal proceeding relating to a real estate development, on September 23, 2022. The court decision is published in Firestar Custom Home Builders Inc. v. 1099000 B.C. Ltd., 2022 BCCA 324.
- Succeeded, on behalf of 6 individual clients, in obtaining court judgment on April 25, 2025 against a real estate developer to void all the clients’ pre-sale contracts, saving the clients a total of $7,699,400.00. The court decision is published in Ye v. Vesta Properties (Latimer) Ltd., 2025 BCSC 773.
- Succeeded on behalf of a defendant before the Supreme Court of British Columbia to cancel a judgment of HKD $6,800,000.00 that was registered on the defendant’s lands, on June 21, 2023. The court decision is published in Venetian Macau Limited v. Huang, 2023 BCSC 1534.
- Succeeded on behalf of a defendant before the Supreme Court of British Columbia to cancel a judgment of $785,211.14 that was registered on the defendant’s lands, on March 17, 2023. The court decision is published in Melco Resorts (Macau) Limited v. Huang, 2023 BCSC 631.
- Succeeded on behalf of a purchaser before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on March 11, 2022. The court decision is published in Chan v. Dhaliwal, 2022 BCSC 571.
- Succeeded in obtaining a court order before the Supreme Court of British Columbia for sole conduct of sale of a real estate property, on March 5, 2026.
- Succeeded in varying a Mareva injunction to release approximately $270,000.00 in frozen funds to our client, on January 23, 2026.
- Succeeded on behalf of two purchasers to void their pre-sale contract against a real estate developer, saving them $1,386,000.00 plus GST, on October 31, 2025.
- Succeeded in obtaining a court order before the Supreme Court of British Columbia to release sale funds of $868,000.00 on the basis that the relevant Certificate of Pending Litigation was improperly registered on land, on October 21, 2025.
- Succeeded on behalf of a purchaser to void her pre-sale contract against a real estate developer, saving her $829,900.00 plus GST, on September 18, 2025.
- Succeeded on behalf of two purchasers to void their pre-sale contract against a real estate developer, saving them $485,000.00 plus GST, on August 28, 2025.
- Succeeded in dismissing a landowner’s application in Residential Tenancy Branch to evict our client when there is a dispute in ownership, on October 20, 2025.
- Succeeded in obtaining a court order before the Supreme Court of British Columbia to resolve a co-ownership dispute pursuant to the Partition of Property Act, on September 11, 2025.
- Succeeded in obtaining a desirable settlement amount of $113,505.00 for a sub-contractor, on July 24, 2025, after filing a builder’s lien.
- Succeeded on behalf of a client to recover $125,620.35 from the client’s debtor, within three months, on February 25, 2025.
- Succeeded on behalf of vendors in preventing a real estate dispute from escalating into a lawsuit, on September 15, 2024.
- Succeeded in dismissing a lawsuit of HKD $4,484,358.32 before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on behalf of a defendant on February 20, 2024.
- Succeeded in dismissing a lawsuit of HKD $6,800,000.00 before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on behalf of a defendant on December 15, 2023.
- Succeeded in obtaining a restraining order before the Supreme Court of British Columbia to prevent disposition of assets, on April 29, 2024.
- Succeeded in dismissing a lawsuit relating to environmental contamination before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on behalf of a property owner, on April 8, 2024.
- Succeeded on behalf of a client to recover $1,000,000.00 from the client’s debtor, in the month of May 2024.
- Succeeded on behalf of a defendant before the Supreme Court of British Columbia to recover $768,973.85 that was improperly garnished into court, on March 11, 2021.
- Succeeded in obtaining both a monetary order for a landowner against tenants and an order to allow the landowner to keep the security deposit, on February 8, 2024.
- Succeeded in obtaining both an Order of Possession and a monetary order for a landowner against tenants, on November 20, 2023.
- Succeeded in obtaining a court judgment of $110,905.75 before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on August 9, 2023.
- Succeeded in defending a mortgage foreclosure on behalf of a property owner before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on April 27, 2023.
- Succeeded in enforcing a contract of purchase and sale for a purchaser, through litigation, from a vendor who was not willing to comply with the contract, on January 4, 2022. In favour of the purchaser, the purchase price was further deducted by $5,000.00.
- Succeeded in recovering for a purchaser, through litigation, from a vendor who was not willing to comply with a contract of purchase and sale, the purchaser’s deposit of $100,000.00 plus a desirable settlement amount that was $10,000.00 more than what the purchaser had asked for, on October 18, 2021.
- Succeeded in recovering possession of building for a commercial landowner from a difficult commercial tenant, on May 19, 2022, using only one month’s time.
- Succeeded in obtaining a desirable settlement for a commercial tenant in the Supreme Court of British Columbia on May 26, 2022, by significantly postponing the date that the tenant was required to vacate the lands.
- Succeeded in having a client be recognized as a deceased’s spouse and be entitled to all of the deceased’s assets, despite opposition from the deceased’s sister, before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on March 10, 2023.
- Succeeded in obtaining a court judgment of $154,567.48 plus costs of $6,572.35 at a summary trial before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on January 13, 2021.
- Succeeded in obtaining $300,000.00 for two adult claimants for retroactive child support, through litigation, on December 11, 2020.
- Succeeded in obtaining an Order of Committal before the Supreme Court of British Columbia against a judgment debtor, on February 28, 2022.
- Succeeded in obtaining a court judgment of $147,163.82 plus costs of $722.75 before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on December 6, 2021.
- Succeeded in obtaining a desirable settlement for a defendant in the Federal Court of Canada on July 6, 2022, by reducing the claim amount of USD $229,290.00 to USD $42,000.00.
- Succeeded in a contested chambers application for the settling of a court order before the Supreme Court of British Columbia, on December 7, 2022.
- Succeeded in opposing applications to adjourn a trial and to testify by video before the Provincial Court of British Columbia, on November 26, 2020.
- Succeeded in opposing an application before the Provincial Court of British Columbia with respect to jurisdiction and enforcement issues, on November 23, 2020.
- Succeeded in opposing applications to adjourn a trial and to testify by video before the Provincial Court of British Columbia, on September 30, 2020.
- Succeeded in obtaining a divorce order on behalf of a client before contested family issues such as property division and spousal support could be resolved, on April 2, 2024.
