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Information and Insights

Welcome to the home of our blogging lawyers. Here you will find information and insights on legal trends that we hope will bring clarity to your complex business and personal challenges.

Field Law is a 100+ year old business law firm serving western and northern Canada from offices in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The Firm offers a comprehensive range of legal and complementary services to businesses, institutions, governments and other organizations. Additionally the Firm provides private services to individuals including estate planning services and real estate transactions. One of Field Law’s core values is giving back to the communities it serves and is active in many community and charitable initiatives. The Field Law Community Fund Program was launched in 2013 and has so far provided $610,000 in funding to 105 local projects.

Information on this website does not establish any form of lawyer-client relationship with Field LLP or with any of its lawyers. The information on this website is public information and is not individualized legal advice. Readers should not rely on or take any action based upon this information; professional advice should be obtained.

Understanding Board Member Duties: When Condo Boards Fail

Boards of directors for condominium corporations are typically comprised of volunteers. Depending on the eligibility requirements in the corporation’s bylaws, these are more often than not members of the corporation, that is, unit owners. For residential condominiums, this means that the directors are also often lay people, with no particular specialized skills or professional knowledge. […] Read More
February 26, 2021
Real Estate

Amending Bylaws by Ordinary Resolution: When is a Conflict a Conflict?

I have been contacted by several condominium corporations regarding amending their bylaws to bring them into compliance with recent changes to Alberta’s condominium legislation. Along with the changes introduced in 2019 and 2020, the Legislature provided condominium corporations with the ability to amend bylaws that conflict with the revised legislation by way of an ordinary […] Read More
November 18, 2020
Real Estate

The Importance of Notice

Has your condominium corporation convened an Annual General Meeting (AGM) in 2020? If you’re not a member of your Board of Directors and you answered ‘no’ to that question, you may want to find out for sure after reading this. I recently attended my own AGM. It’s a small condominium property with fewer than 40 […] Read More
November 18, 2020
Real Estate

Prompt Payment in Alberta: One Big Step Closer

On October 21, 2020, Bill 37: Builders’ Lien (Prompt Payment) Amendment Act, 2020 passed First Reading in the Alberta Legislature. Bill 37 would introduce significant changes to the Alberta Builders’ Lien Act, particularly by introducing statutory deadlines on payments in the construction chain, known commonly as “prompt payment”, and by establishing an “adjudication” mechanism to […] Read More
October 22, 2020
Legislation

UPDATE – Ministerial Order 009/2020 Expired: Condos Once More Required to Convene AGMs

UPDATE – Service Alberta has released a new publication, General Meetings During Relaunch, in an effort to clarify the effect of the Ministerial Order’s expiry. Among other things, this publication confirms that condominium corporations are not expressly authorized to allow electronic participation in general meetings of the corporation, especially if the bylaws are silent in […] Read More
October 15, 2020
Real Estate

Asserting Privilege in the Condominium Context

The issue of asserting solicitor-client privilege in the condominium context is an interesting one, especially as between the condominium corporation and the individual unit owners. There are no simple answers or bright line rules when it comes to requests by unit owners for access to documents belonging to the corporation, other than what is expressly […] Read More
October 9, 2020
Real Estate