01/15/2019 – Jurisdiction Ontario
Part 65 published on 01/03/2019
Court determines that borrowing by-law was properly passed
The condominium corporation, while under the control of an administrator, sought to pass a borrowing by-law at a meeting of the owners. On a subsequent uncontested application, the administrator sought the Court’s direction as to whether or not the by-law had been properly passed.
At the meeting called to consider the by-law, the owners of a majority of the units had been in attendance (either in person or by proxy). A majority of those in attendance had voted in favour of passing the by-law. However, those in favour did not represent a majority of all units in the condominium.
The Court held that the by-law had been validly passed. The Court said:
The correct and reasonable interpretation of the current provisions of section 56(10) is that those provisions did not on their face (despite any arguable punctuation errors) amend the requirements in section 50 and 53 of the Act.
A majority of all unit owners were in attendance, and a majority of those present unit owners approved the bylaw. The by-law in question has been validly passed.
Editorial Note: In my respectful view, this case was wrongly decided. The wording of Section 56 (10) of the Condominium Act, 1998 is clear: For a by-law to be passed, the owners of a majority of the units in the corporation must vote in favour of confirming the by-law. I suspect that this case might have been decided differently had the application been contested.