Kerry Fox

Condo board forces owner out

In a recent ruling, an Ontario court issued an order compelling a condo owner in Toronto to vacate and sell her unit within 3 months.

The case summarizes the condo owner's behaviour as including "physical assaults on other unit holders, acts of mischief against their property, racist and homophobic slurs and threats repeatedly made against other unit holders, playing extremely loud music at night, watching and besetting other unit holders and using her large and aggressive dog to frighten and intimidate other unit holders and their children."

The Condominium Act prohibits condo owners from damaging property, or doing anything which might cause injury to an individual. A condominium board is required to ensure that the Act is being complied with.

In Toronto Condo Corp. No. 747 v. Korolekh, the judge found that the condo owner's behaviour did violate the Act, and the condo board was within its rights to seek an order that she vacate and sell her unit. To top it off, the condo owner was also ordered to pay the condominium's legal costs of $35,000.00.

This blog entry is intended as general information only and does not constitute legal advice. If you need legal advice, please speak to a lawyer.

Kerry Fox is a lawyer practising in Nepean, Ontario.

Ontario condominium survey

Give your feedback to the Ontario government if you've had any positive, or negative, experiences with condominiums. The survey, launched in July, contains questions such as whether you've ever had a dispute with a condominium board of directors, or whether you're satisfied with the funding of the condominium reserve fund for your building.

I think it's helpful that the government is asking current condominium owners about their experiences. But, it's people who've never bought a condominium before that need to be educated, not people who already own one. You need consumer awareness of how a condominium works (and whether it suits your lifestyle) before you buy a condominium, not after the fact.

From my perspective, one limitation of the current legislation is that condominium boards are not required to disclose much detail relating to problems, or to possible special assessments. A prospective purchaser may be advised that there is an issue in the status certificate, but trying to get further information about the problem- how it's being addressed, and how much it's going to cost to fix- is often very difficult.

Kerry Fox is a real estate lawyer practising in Nepean, Ontario.

Reality TV comes to Ottawa!

At long last, Ottawa is soon to be home to a new real-estate based reality TV show. Realtor Paul Rushforth, and interior designer, Penny Southam, are being featured in a new show called 'All for Nothing'. Two sets of competing homeowners are challenged with who can best prepare their houses for sale. Unlike some other shows, the premise of this show is that the homeowners do whatever renovation or repair work is necessary in order to list the property themselves, rather than hiring contractors.

Homeowners are competing for the prize that Paul Rushworth will list their home for sale at zero commission.

If you are interested in being cast for this show, you can check out the production company's website.

The show premieres October 7^th on the W network.

Kerry Fox is a real estate lawyer practicing in Nepean, Ontario.

Are you worried about bed bugs?

According to a recent article in the Toronto Star, some who work in the real estate industry are wondering when home buyers will start including conditions in their offers with respect to whether a property is contaminated with bedbugs.

Apparently, in many major cities, the incidents of bedbugs are on the rise in residential apartments, condos, houses, and even commercial buildings. They are difficult to get rid of and spread very easily.

I don't know of any recent outbreaks in Ottawa, but there have been outbreaks in Toronto, Calgary, Regina and Vancouver.

What can you do to protect yourself as a home or condo buyer? Like most things involving buying a property, the rule of thumb is always "buyer beware". It's probably better to hire an inspector to tell you whether bedbugs (or other insects for that matter ) are present at a property. You might have the option of putting a condition in your offer whereby the seller warrants that the property is free from any insect infestation. However, I think you might have a difficult time after closing trying to prove that there were insects at the property before you took possession.

This blog entry is intended as general information only and does not constitute legal advice. If you need legal advice, please speak to a lawyer.

Kerry Fox is a real estate lawyer practising in Nepean, Ontario.

Do real estate lawyers work in "puppy mills"?

Have you ever wondered what is the biggest area of negligence claims against Ontario lawyers?

As it turns out, it's in real estate law! According to a recent article in the Law Times, 36% of all claims involving Ontario lawyers involved real estate law.

What's to account for this high concentration of claims in one area of law? As the article mentions, there's no doubt that some lawyers dabble in real estate law. However, many lawyers concentrate a good percentage of their time doing real estate closings, but are faced with the same pressures as any other business owner to keep their costs down in order to stay competitive in the marketplace.

I love a quote in the Law Times article which describes some law offices with high volume real estate law practices as "puppy mills where they crank out real estate deals using paralegals or secretaries". I think this comment is a little harsh. Consumers want efficiency and no one wants to be paying a lawyer or anyone else to be 'reinventing the wheel' on each real estate law file. But, there's a balance to be struck between efficiency and managing the risks associated with buying or selling real estate.

The availability of title insurance does give some homebuyers a (sometimes) false sense of security. Having said that, I cannot think of a time when I've ever convinced a homebuyer to fork out $2500.00 for a new survey, when they could conveniently purchase a title insurance policy for $250.00.

It's a question of the client understanding the risks that they are taking on- in foregoing the need for an updated survey, for example.

This blog is intended as general information only and does not constitute legal advice about real estate law. If you need legal advice, please speak to a lawyer.

Kerry Fox practices real estate law in Nepean, Ontario.