Lahrkamp v. Metropolitan Condominium Corporation No. 932 (Toronto Small Clams Court)

The owner sued under Section 55 of the Condominium Act, 1998 for an order entitling the owner to examine various records of the corporation, and for a $500 penalty pursuant to Section 55.  The Court ordered the condominium corporation to produce for examination some of the requested records and also awarded the owner $500.  The Court’s decision included the following: 

• Section 55(3) of the Act states that an owner can examine records of the corporation for purposes “reasonably related to the purposes of the Act”.  However, not every request for documents must be accompanied by reasons for the request.  In some cases, a reason (falling within the purposes of the Act) may be self evident from the surrounding facts, or may be reasonably inferred from the nature of the record requested.  The Court said: “It is necessary to look at the facts surrounding each request to determine whether the condominium corporation had a reasonable excuse in not providing the records for examination.”

• The owner’s request for historical accounting records respecting certain lobby expenditures was refused because the owner was on a pure “fishing expedition” without any evidence to support his suspicion of impropriety.  Given the weak basis for the request, and the extensive effort that would be required to assemble those records, the Court felt that it was reasonable to refuse this request.

• The Court also refused to grant the owner’s request to see records relating to his own unit, dating back to 2003.  The Court said that the condominium corporation had a reasonable excuse to deny these records “on the basis that a general search would have been expensive and too time consuming” and the owner had not given reasons to counter the condominium corporation’s position in denying the records.

• The owner was not entitled to the corporation’s list of owners’ names and addresses because Section 55(4)(c) of the Act generally exempts the right to examine records relating to specific units or owners.  “The plaintiff’s reason for wanting the list was described as a need to communicate with others” and this reason was “clearly too vague and infringes on the privacy rights of the communal owners”.

• The owner was entitled to see the proxies and ballots for the 2009 and 2010 AGMs.  The owner was also entitled to see minutes of the Board meetings and to see notices of the corporation’s rules.