The boom of condominium development has made legal disputes between condo owners, boards, and developers more pertinent. There are many types of conflicts between these parties. Unfortunately,  the legal system is not up to the challenge to resolve them effectively and efficiently.

We don’t claim to have a broad understanding of the entirety of condominiums’ legal issues. However, we can readily understand the perspective of condo owners we hear from so frequently. Many people come to us with condo-related issues, which are, in effect, nearly impossible to resolve. It is so because the forums available for addressing their disputes are too expensive or complicated to access. Here are just a couple of situations that come to mind from recent memory.

Harassment

Following a minor disagreement, the condo board harasses a condo owner and that condo’s tenant. Among other things, the tenant gets late-night visits from security claiming he’s loud (even though he’s sleeping). He is hounded by sanitation, fire and hazardous materials inspections. There is a vexatious lawsuit and an abundance of legal letters, for which the condominium’s lawyer invoices the owner.

Had the owner been a tenant, his recourse would be the Landlord and Tenant Board. In his situation, it would be reasonable to file a tenant’s application claiming to put an end to the landlord’s harassment. For a condo owner, however, there are only two possible avenues:

• • an injunction (order to stop harassment) from the Superior Court of Justice, or
  • initiation of private prosecution.

Both options are fraught with problems. The Superior Court of Justice is prohibitively expensive for him.  Private prosecution is, practically, too difficult to start. It is hard to identify the particular individual responsible for the harassment. Even if the individual is identified, there’s no guarantee that another person won’t take up the harassment.

Excessive Repair or Maintenance Fees

A condo owner’s tenant had broken the door to his unit, and it requires replacement. The condo board charged the owner $4,000 for this replacement, as well as legal fees for communicating with her regarding the issue.

Reasonably, the owner wants to challenge this charge. It seems rather excessive considering the door type. Once again, we see that had the owner been a tenant, the Landlord and Tenant Board could have speedily dealt with the issue.

 Building-wide Disputes

We also see disputes with condo boards that are common to an entire building’s worth of tenants. We encountered a situation, for example, where the condo board has repaired the building’s roof, found that it was unable to pay for the repair, and sent every unit’s owner a bill for thousands of dollars. This raises many points which the unit owners can dispute:

• Had the need for the repair existed?
• Had the Board used the most cost-efficient option for the repair?
• Why are the owners responsible for these additional costs, more than the maintenance fees they already pay?

Once again, the condo owners have limited options to deal with the problem in a cost-efficient and legally effective way. 

Condominium Authority Tribunal 

The creation of the Condominium Authority Tribunal should have eased access to justice for the condo owners. However, the jurisdiction of the tribunal is still extremely narrow.

We believe that true access to justice means that the avenues available to us to defend our rights do not simply exist but exist in the form that makes them financially accessible, efficient and proportionate to the complexity and significance of the dispute. To us, for example, having to apply to the Superior Court for an injunction to stop harassment by the condo board, with all the associated legal costs, fees and time delay, seems rather like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer.   

We advocate for the broader jurisdiction of the Condominium Authority Tribunal. It should be as broad as the jurisdiction of the Landlord and Tenant Board. (LTB). The tribunal should resolve disputes on things such as maintenance, harassment, and repairs, in a sufficiently rapid, simple and cost-efficient way to be a real option to condo owners and boards alike.