Office: 165 Pretoria Avenue, Ottawa ON. K1S 1X1
Phone: 613.238.2801
Fax: 613.238.4583
email: roberthof@royallepage.ca
Office: 165 Pretoria Avenue, Ottawa ON. K1S 1X1
Phone: 613.238.2801
Fax: 613.238.4583
email: roberthof@royallepage.ca
The Government has no timetable for many key consumer protection amendments to the former condo act.
With parts of the new Condominium Act coming into force on Nov. 1, prominent Toronto condominium lawyer Audrey Loeb has expressed concern over the government’s failure to protect consumers from developer “schemes” in the proclamation of the legislation.
The amendments to the Condominium Act 1998 were enacted in December, 2015, by the passage of Bill 106, the Condominium Management Services Act, 2015. Although the legislation has received Royal Assent, the amendments do not come into effect until they receive section-by-section proclamation by the Lieutenant Governor.
Some of the amendments have already been proclaimed – many of them come into effect on November 1, and still others will become law on January 1, 2018. But there is no timetable for proclamation of many of the most important consumer protection parts of the new law.
Audrey Loeb, condominium law expert and author of two books on the Condominium Act, is among the critics of the delay to enact the protections for buyers of newly-built condominiums.
She was harshly critical of the government for failing to proclaim significant changes to the Act which would prohibit some of the worst builder abuses in the process of selling new condominium units. These changes, she said, should have been proclaimed to come into effect next week.
“I don’t understand,” Loeb says, “what the government’s excuse is for not proclaiming these sections on Nov. 1.”
Some of the consumer protection sections not yet in force:
This provision would cover, for example, a contract for the long-term lease of geo-thermal equipment or the supply of telephone, cable TV or internet services to the building.
There is also a new provision that the corporation may sell the building, land and all the units if 80 per cent of the unit owners vote in favour of the sale.
Is the government deliberately delaying implementation of the consumer-protection provisions until after the election next June?
The government simply has no excuse for delaying implementation of these critical consumer protections.
Bob Aaron is a Toronto real estate lawyer and frequent speaker to gorups of home buyers and real estate agents. He can be reached by email at bob@aaron.ca, phone 416-364-9366.