The CAO Wants Your Input Regarding Cost Awards

The Condominium Authority of Ontario (CAO) has recently initiated a public consultation regarding the Condominium Authority Tribunal’s (CAT) rules of procedure and the issue of legal costs.

The CAT’s authority will be expanded on January 1, 2022 to encompass a wide range of common condominium disputes. Its rules currently provide that legal costs will not be awarded except in exceptional circumstances. This means that, in most cases, a corporation which is forced to seek a compliance order against a unit owner or tenant who is habitually breaching the corporation’s governing document, will do so at their own significant cost. This is the opposite of the current cost regime for compliance matters heard in the courts (where most compliance matters are now determined), where the presumption is that the unsuccessful party is responsible for the winner’s costs.

We are concerned that if corporations are not able to recover their legal costs when they are successful in obtaining a compliance order, it will have a chilling effect on these proceedings. We expect that many corporations will simply choose not to enforce their governing documents, rather than bear the significant cost of going through a CAT proceeding. We also think that this is grossly unfair to other unit owners that they should indirectly bear the costs (via the common expenses) when one owner persistently breaches the governing documents.

We encourage all readers to complete the survey on the CAO’s website and to encourage the CAO to revise its rules to award costs to the winner of compliance proceedings.