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Condo boards and owners should be familiar with the concept of “common elements” and “units”. While there is no “one size fits all” approach to distinguishing the two, in simplified terms, anything that is not part of a “unit” is a “common element”. Diligent boards and owners should review the condo’s Declaration  for inclusions/ exclusions to and from the unit,  maintenance and repair obligations and Schedule “C” to determine unit boundaries; the condo’s registered plan drawings will lay that out in an illustrated form. Understanding these points is critically important.

In Landont Ltd. v. Frontenac Condominium Corp. No. 11, Landont Ltd. used their unit to operate a commercial parking lot. Landont and FCC 11 agreed that the concrete slab below the lot was a common element, but this case turned on whether a waterproofing membrane installed on the upper surface of the concrete slab was part of the common elements. The distinction fundamentally determined which party was responsible for maintaining and repairing the membrane.

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Continue Reading Unit and common element boundaries: Not always as “concrete” as they seem

The Condo Authority Tribunal’s decision in Rahman v. PSCC 779 is the first of its kind under the Tribunal’s expanded jurisdiction.  The case provides a strong warning against condos seeking to unilaterally impose costs against unit owners.

The Tribunal held that it had authority to hear this matter – a dispute concerning parking and indemnification…

Lozano v. TSCC 1765 was one of our Top 10 cases for 2020 because it reaffirmed that a higher negligence threshold is not applicable for s.105 chargebacks.  You can read a summary of the case in our newsletter, Condo Alert!, Winter 2020. 

 Lozano’s insurer (who paid the insurance deductible) appealed the 2020 decision, asking the Divisional Court to re-write s.105 of the Condo Act and adopt a “robust” negligence test for liability under that section. The court rejected this proposal and dismissed the appeal a few days ago. 

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Continue Reading Never mind the ballcocks, here’s the shut-off valve 

The courts kicked-off the year with the release of a decision discussing condominium arbitrations and the importance of explicit appeal rights in arbitration agreements.

This case involved a unit owner, who operated a legal cannabis store at the condominium building. The condo   believed this breached a rule prohibiting cannabis sale at the property. Through an…

Approximately two months have passed since the CAT’s jurisdiction expanded beyond condo record requests to include disputes regarding, pets, parking, vehicles and storage and chargebacks related to such issues.  However, the CAT has yet to release a decision dealing with these new topics. It may  take some time for cases involving expanded jurisdiction issues to wind through the CAT’s online dispute resolution system.  In the meanwhile, enjoy Part 2 of our deep dive into record disputes (Part 1, here).
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Continue Reading Key take-aways from the CAT’s record request decisions – Part 2

There are limited circumstances where directors of condominium corporations can be personally liable for oppressive conduct under Condominium Act, 1998.

In a recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision, the declarant (also a unit owner at a vacant land condominium corporation) sued the condominium corporation and the individual directors.  The allegations of oppressive conduct by the condo and directors included exaggerating construction deficiencies and not repairing them at the same time, implementing rules that impeded the declarant’s ability to rent units and adding these issues to status certificates (among other allegations). The condo corporation brought a motion to throw out the claim against the individual directors under the rules of the court.

The court threw out the claim against the individual directors because:

  • the declarant did not provide sufficient particulars as to what each individual director is alleged to have done, as differentiated from the condo corporation’s alleged conduct; and
  • the alleged conduct of the individual directors did not result in any personal benefit or increase their control in any way; and
  • there was no reasonable basis in the claim for the court to decide whether the alleged oppression could be rectified by a monetary order against the directors personally.

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Continue Reading No oppression claim against directors personally unless a director instigates the conduct