A recent decision of the Ontario Small Claims Court tackles the interesting issue of whether and how condominium boards can reverse earlier decisions in maintenance and repair scenarios.

In 2005, the board of a 40-unit lot-line townhouse complex authorized payment for work to address a recurring plumbing backup problem that was unique to one particular unit. The board of the day had insufficient money in its reserve fund to pay the cost of fixing the problem on a permanent basis but apparently resolved to do the work once the corporation was in a better financial position.

A new board and property manager subsequently took the position that the problem in this unit’s sanitary sewer was not related to the common elements and that the owners of the unit were therefore responsible for solving the problem. The board did not seek to recover its expenditure for the earlier repairs but refused to conduct or pay for any further repairs.

In 2011, the unit owners hired a contractor to repair their sanitary repairs at a cost of $4,500. They asked the condo corporation to reimburse them and, when the request was refused, the unit owners sued the condo in small claims court on the basis that the condo corporation had committed itself with the board’s 2005 resolution to solve the problem one day.

Continue Reading On further thought . . . Reversing earlier board decisions