Category: Real Estate

Bill 53, Service Alberta Statutes (Virtual Meetings) Amendment Act, 2021, is now in force. Section 5, relating to the Red Tape Reduction Implementation Act, 2020 came into force today by Royal Assent on March 26, 2021. The remainder of the Act (including those provisions that amended the Condominium Property Act) was declared to come into […] Read More

I was recently pleased to learn about the tabling of Bill 53 – Service Alberta Statutes (Virtual Meeting) Amendment Act. The Bill is scheduled for a continuation of Second Reading and debate during today’s legislative session. If passed, the Condominium Property Act, RSA 2000 c C-22 (the “Act”) would be amended so as to expressly permit condominiums […] Read More

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

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

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

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

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

In a significant move for Alberta condominiums, on June 1, 2020 the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta, the Honourable Lois Mitchell, approved an Order in Council to amend the Condominium Property Regulation, AR 168/2000. Among other slight changes to document retention periods, the amendments notably give condominium corporations the ability to temporarily remove funds from their capital […] Read More

Condominium corporations face particularly unique challenges due to the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings, among other things. In response to these public health restrictions, the Minister of Service Alberta, the Honourable Nate Glubish, issued a Ministerial Order on April 9, 2020 that temporarily suspends a host of time frames and other requirements under […] Read More

The Ontario Superior Court has just ruled that unit owners allowing third party contractors access to a condominium property to perform non-urgent work in their unit constitutes a matter of urgency. Last week, in York Condominium Corporation No. 419 v Black, 2020 ONSC 2066, a condominium corporation in Ontario sought an emergency court injunction against […] Read More