Condominium Corporation Not Required to Await Outcome of LTB Proceedings

In the case of TSCC 1767 v. Ahmed, the condominium corporation made application to the CAT, seeking various remedies against a landlord and former tenants in relation to the tenants’ dog.  Among other things, the condominium corporation sought to recover costs incurred to clean-up dog waste from the tenants’ balcony and from balconies below. The condominium corporation also sought to recover legal costs incurred by the condominium corporation for enforcement efforts (both before and during the CAT process). 

The landlord had previously brought an eviction application against the tenants before the LTB, and the tenants had ultimately reached an agreement with the landlord to vacate the unit (and had indeed vacated).

The CAT held that the former tenants were obligated to pay the corporation’s clean-up costs and “pre-CAT” legal costs, but not the corporation’s legal costs for the CAT process (because the claim for such costs did not meet the “exceptional reasons” test in the CAT’s cost Rules as they existed prior to January 2022). On the particular facts of this case, the CAT said that the landlord was not jointly liable for the amounts owed by the tenants, because of some unique commitments (not to seek such amounts) which had been made by the condominium corporation to the landlord.

In the course of the hearing, the landlord also made an additional important argument. In particular, the landlord argued that the condominium corporation should have awaited the outcome of LTB process before taking its own enforcement action. The CAT rejected this argument. The CAT said:

TSCC1767 submits that it was not a party to the LTB proceeding and could not have predicted its outcome. I conclude that there was no reason for TSCC1767 to wait. In fact, given the number of complaints it was receiving and the refusal of the Tenants to comply with the notice directing them to remove the dog, there were compelling reasons to proceed with this application.

The CAT also confirmed that the condominium corporation was not bound by res judicata in relation to the LTB process, because the condominium corporation was not a party to that process.

This is another nice statement of the rights (and in fact the obligations) of condominium corporations to take enforcement steps, when justified by all of the circumstances.

Stay tuned to Condo Law News to keep up to date on the latest developments in CAT decisions!