Part 36 published on 01/12/11
Condominium corporation has no right to lien for recovery of “individual obligation”
The condominium corporation dealt with a bed bug infestation which it said originated in the defendant’s unit. The condominium corporation claimed that the defendant owner was responsible for extermination costs of $8,420.64 plus legal costs and interest of $27,091.10 – and liened the defendant’s unit for recovery of these amounts.
The Court held that the lien was not valid, and ordered its removal. The Court said that these sorts of “individual claims” (against one owner) cannot be recovered by lien, but instead can be recovered only as a personal, unsecured debt. The Court said that the Condominium Property Act “supports a distinction between obligations that are fundamentally common, or ‘collective’, and those that are individual. The collective obligations achieve an in rem quality and are sometimes thought to have a ‘super priority’” … “Individual duties remain in personam and are enforced with the usual range of personal remedies.”
In short, the Court said that a lien can be registered only in relation to collective common expenses, which are shared by all owners.