Part 47 published on 01/09/14
Court orders sale of unit due to owner’s contempt of Court
The owner made several petitions, in each case repeating the owner’s challenge to the strata corporation’s parking arrangements. All of the petitions were dismissed, with cost awards in favour of the strata corporation. The repeating petitions were held to be an abuse of the Court’s process, given the fact that the Court had previously decided the matters in dispute.
The Court had also previously ordered that the owner pay a fine of $10,000 due to the owner’s contempt. The owner refused to pay the fine. Ultimately the Court ordered that the owner’s unit be sold. The Court said:
As I have noted more than once, this represents a departure from precedent insofar as punishment for contempt of court is concerned. It is, however, as I see it, an appropriate evolution that is in line with sanctions that have been imposed in analogous circumstances for similar egregious behavior.
In this case, it appears certain that Mrs. Bea is destined to lose her property in any event through the enforcement of the many judgments for costs registered against it. The question is whether the owners should be put through the additional expense and frustration of proceeding in that way in the face of the Beas’ unremitting pattern of abuse of the court process, and the ever mounting costs of dealing with them. I think not. The time to end their abuse of the court’s process is now.