What About a Director’s Request for Records?

In the case of Sharma v. TSCC 2510, the Applicant was a Director. He argued that certain restrictions and fees – applicable to owners’ requests for records – should not apply to him (as a Director). The Director argued that his rights to see records were different than the rights of a non-Director owner because Directors have various additional obligations (namely under Section 37 of the Condominium Act).

The Tribunal did not decide the application. The Tribunal dismissed the application as outside the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.  The Tribunal said:

The Act and Ontario Regulation 179/17 does not give jurisdiction for the Tribunal to hear applications made by a director of a condominium corporation who seeks access to records to fulfill their duties pursuant to section 37 of the Act. Rather, the Tribunal’s jurisdiction in matters related to records is limited to unit owners seeking access to their condominium corporation’s records solely related to their interest as a unit owner.

In my view, a condominium Director may indeed have the right to see records that would not otherwise be available to an owner (in order to fulfill the Director’s statutory obligations). At the same time, there may be records that should in certain circumstances be kept confidential from one or more of the Directors, particularly in cases where there is some sort of conflict of interest between the Director and the condominium corporation. Depending upon the circumstances, these issues can be quite tricky and complex to manage. We also have a template Rule to address these sorts of issues. A Rule of that sort may be a good idea in many cases.

In any event:  This case tells us that any disputes about special rights of a Director to see records (beyond the rights of other owners) falls outside the CAT’s jurisdiction.

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