A Haines Junction couple is complaining a business deal gone wrong with a Yukon MLA has left them with a $40,000 headache.

Richard and Rose Mazur told the Star they mistakenly signed a sale agreement with Liberal MLA Gary McRobb, and that he required them to pay $25,000 to get their family-owned RV park back.

Richard Mazur said the story begins a few years ago, when he was first diagnosed with a heart condition.

He said his family decided to put the Kluane RV Kampground up for sale.

Mazur had purchased the seven-acre property in 1988 and developed it into 90 RV stalls, including the infrastructure. The property sat on real estate listings for about three years untouched, he said.

'Then, we had three people interested in it all at once,' he said.

McRobb was the first to put down a $25,000 deposit with the real estate agency for the $550,000 property, and arranged to meet with the Mazurs to start signing paperwork.

When McRobb passed over a sale agreement for them to sign, confusion ensued.

'We, Rose and I, thought 100 per cent that it was just an offer,' said Richard Mazur. 'When we signed that paper, we entered into a purchase of sale contract.

'I didn't even read it because I thought it was an offer.'

Mazur said he and his wife had purchased homes previously, although it was always done privately.

This was the first time they participated in a sale through a real estate agency, and that is why they didn't understand they were signing a sale agreement, not just accepting a tentative offer.

Richard Mazur said he did not realize his mistake at the time of the meeting. When he announced the sale plans to his children and grandchildren, he was met with resistance.

'They never thought we'd actually sell it, so when the time came, they said they wanted to keep it in the family,' he said.

'I mean, most of them grew up there, and worked there.'

The family agreed keeping it could work, as long as extra staff were hired and the business was transferred to one of the children to run, so the elder Mazur could relax.

Rose Mazur said she called McRobb to tell him the deal was off, and he was not pleased, reminding her the agreement had been signed.

'We had it checked out by our lawyer, and of course, it was a legal contract,' said Richard Mazur.

Meetings between lawyers ensued, and Richard Mazur said McRobb 'acted cold' toward he and his wife, not even making eye contact with the couple.

Contacted by the Star both last month and on Thursday, McRobb said the matter is personal, and he would prefer not to comment on it until later.

Richard Mazur said he originally offered McRobb $5,000 to cover any out-of-pocket expenses, plus the return of his deposit, but the offer was refused.

'A few weeks later, he came to the RV park, and we met, just the two of us,' said Mazur. 'He told me he wanted $25,000 cash and a five-year caveat on the property.'

The Mazurs took this situation home to mull over.

'It was a tough decision,' said Richard Mazur. 'We knew it was legal and he had every right to keep it.

'We just didn't read it, we just signed it. We know we should have brought it to a lawyer first.'

The Mazurs decided to do what they could to retain ownership of their RV park. That meant paying their real estate agent, their lawyer, covering McRobb's legal fees and paying him an additional $25,000.

Today, the Mazurs are out $42,000.

The business is all theirs, although the caveat on the property stipulates that if they decide to sell, it must go to McRobb.

The Mazurs said fees at their RV park won't go up as a result of all this, and business will continue as usual.

'Rose is still devastated,' Richard Mazur said. 'I mean, we work hard for our money; it doesn't come easy.'

He said he realizes he was in the wrong legally, but believes McRobb is in the wrong morally.

'Why did he need that extra $25,000? It's for nothing,' he said. 'He should have just given it back to us. We made a mistake.

'Now, we're paying for it.'

He said he is willing to let this go and to move on, but he wants people to know about his experience with McRobb because of the latter's status as an elected public representative.

See letter, p. 11.