By Tony Bui on April 14, 2022
POSTED IN CASE STUDIES, GOVERNANCE, MEETINGS
Reposted article from www.ontariocondolaw.com
We wrote about condo meetings and election pitfalls in the past (see HERE and HERE) but those articles focused on “what happens at the meeting/election”. A recent Superior Court decision highlights the dangers of poor meeting notices – these meetings were essentially dead before they hit the ground.
2030516 Ontario Inc. v. TSCC 2638 et. al. dealt with a 14-unit condominium where the developer owned half of the units. The applicants collectively owned the other half. The developer was over two years late in holding the turnover meeting and therefore the developer’s board remained in control of the condominium. The remaining owners brought an application for a turnover meeting and a resulting court endorsement ordered a “turnover meeting be held on February 10, 2022”.
The developer board delivered a “Notice of Turnover Meeting – Town Hall Meeting” for February 10 without specifying who the candidates for election would be. This notice indicated the February 10 date was to “provide information and logistics for the Turnover Meeting”, to be held the following day. This understandably caused confusion about the scope of the meeting – and the court recognized that it appeared to be “designed to sow confusion”. The owner applicants didn’t clarify the meeting agenda: they simply thought it was a waste of time since it wasn’t the turnover meeting it was supposed to be. The owner applicants did not attend the February 11 meeting and the developer’s representatives were re-elected to the board.