Winning with Shibley Righton
- Shibley Righton
- May 24, 2018
- 1 min read
Updated: Apr 24
Winning with Shibley Righton
May 24, 2018
We wish to share a recent decision in which we helped a unit owner enforce his right to requisition a meeting and collect proxies to remove condominium directors.
SSCC 431 and SSCC 434 are two recreational condominium corporations. Atkins is a unit owner who spearheaded a requisition to remove the board of directors of the two corporations. The directors refused to call the meeting unless the requisitionists agreed:
1. not to collect proxies; and
2. not to communicate with other owners before the vote.
When the requisitionists refused these terms, the directors commenced a court application for an order permitting them to ban communications among unit owners and prohibit the use of proxies at the requisitioned meetings.
Because the condominiums were vacation properties with many off-site owners, prohibiting communications and proxies would likely have doomed the attempt to replace the directors. We were retained as counsel for the unit owner named in the application.
At the hearing of this matter the judge refused to either prohibit proxies or communication between unit owners. The judge accepted our argument that the condominium's demands were not consistent with the system of democratic governance set out in the Condominium Act, 1998.
This case is a lesson to condominium directors not to interfere with the democratic rights of owners. Judges expect condominium corporations to adhere to the provisions of the Act and will uphold its provisions in order to protect consumers.
