Kim and Kanye live in a relatively luxurious gated community. All of the residences must be of a certain square footage, and must have imported Italian marble on the front. One of their neighbors recently hired a construction company to remodel their house. Their house had been grandfathered into the community for quite a while and did not follow the marble requirement. However, they had told Kim and Kanye that they were updating and installing the marble to meet the look of the community. Kim and Kanye were ecstatic because no one wants to live next to people who use brick, siding or stone, and with their pending divorce, the improvements to the neighbors will drive up their asking price when they sell.
The neighbors paid for the work up front and then took off to their private island to avoid Covid. The construction company realized the owners were gone and stopped completing the work. They left the home in such disrepair that the property value plummeted lower than it was before they started. Kim and Kanye sued the contractor as third-party beneficiaries and requested the difference in the selling price of their estate from the decreased property value. Who wins and why?
