Condominium Scenarios

Defending your Rights Against a Condominium Administrator

A condominium administrator is not likely to cooperate with you once they learn that you are planning to take action against them. Having said that, the RTA makes it an offense for a “person” (it does not need to be the landlord), to knowingly obstruct your efforts at obtaining legal relief. An offence can reported to the Investigations and Enforcement branch of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

So far, the law has not put heavy restrictions on condominium administrators, which has meant that you can therefore expect a dirty tricks campaign to be lodged against you, including baseless threats aimed at you and your unit landlord.

Furthermore, don’t be surprised if the condominium administrators begin trying to tire you out by creatively enforcing the condominium corporation's rules or by allowing themselves new authorities of various kinds, which parade as “rules”, or “by-laws”.  Also don’t be surprised if, in response to your plans to take the condominium administrators to the Landlord and Tenant Board, the condominium administrators first take you to Superior Court, based on an invented violation. This action has the sole purpose of bleeding your time and money and to distract you from proceeding against the condominium administrators.

The best example of how prevalent these tactics are is illustrated by U.S. condominium lawyer Mark Perlstein's opening speech for the Saturday portion of the Toronto Condo Show on November 11, 2006, when he told the audience bluntly, that, “… the best way to deal with difficult people are with money… taking them to court and having them faced with high legal fees creates an attitude change.”

Taking your Condominium Administrator to the Landlord and Tenant Board

In this example, let’s assume that your unit landlord is a fine landowner, with whom you do not have any problems. Let’s also assume that your problems lie with the condominium administrators, who happen to be causing you grief. Because of this, you only want to take the condominium administrator to the Board, and spare your landlord from being added as a defendant to your case.

In order to do this you must demonstrate that the condominium administrator is or was acting as your “landlord”.

A tenant who tries to get any kind of justice from a condominium administrator is in for an incredibly difficult challenge. Lawyers who represent condominium administrators will rely on a ton of abstract technicalities in order to prevent tenants from accessing their rights. This means time and expense for tenants.

Get ready to jump through these two formidable hoops:

1. First of all, you will need to determine the correct name and “address for service” of the condominium administrator AND serve the correct legal documents to them at their proper “address for service”. If you do not do specify the name of a/the director(s) and win, you will have an unenforceable judgment – which is a worthless piece of paper.

Of course, for you to properly name the condominium administrator and serve them at their proper “address for service”, you must know who sits on the board of directors.  You have the right to ask the property manager or any member for this information, but don’t expect a quick reply – or a reply at all – because the Condominium Act provides no penalties for those who ignore these requests! For example, one Toronto condominium lawyer falsely represented the condominium corporation's legal requirement to a tenant by  writing that, “[if one is] not an owner of a unit in a condominium corporation, [one is] therefore not entitled to this information."

2. Next, be prepared to be called upon to show that you have a direct legal relationship with the condominium administrator. Otherwise, the condominium administrator’s lawyers will undoubtedly argue that you do not have something called a “privity of contract” because you are a tenant and not the unit owner. “Privity of contract” is a legal concept that has two parts. First, it states that only a party to a contract may enforce its terms. Second, it states that a contract cannot impose obligations on a person who is not a party to the contract. If the lawyers for the condominium administrators win that argument, you can expect that your case will be immediately thrown out.

The doctrine of “privity of contract” has already been commented on by at least one adjudicator at the former Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal, who wrote: “it may be that tenants have no remedy [in the case of an illegal entry by a condominium administrator], and that this is a quirk and a gap that exists when we have a residential tenancy subject to the [Tenant Protection] Act, wrapped up inside a complex with individual unit-holders governed under the Condominium Act.”