Condominiums on near Jarvis St. And Queens Quay East are photographed on Mar 10, 2021.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
An attempt by the Ontario condominium regulator to send emails to every condo owner in the province has raised privacy and ethical concerns with professional property managers and condo law experts.
Every year condominium corporations in Ontario must file an annual return to the Condominium Authority of Ontario. Starting this year, the CAO added a new section to this mandatory filing that asks how each of the more than 12,000 condos keeps track of the email addresses of registered owners. The form goes on to say the “CAO would like to engage directly with all condo owners regarding the information and services that we have developed” and asks managers to check a “Yes” or “No” box to indicate whether they’d like to be contacted by the CAO to “discuss how we might connect with your owners.”
The request for consultation related to email addresses is a red flag for condominium management companies who say they have ethical and legal duties not to share that kind of information with anyone, let alone a third-party organization such as the CAO.
“I believe what they’re trying to do is complete overreach. I don’t believe that they have the authority or the right to request contact information of individual condominium corporation owners,” said Robert Weinberg, president and CEO of Percel Inc., which manages buildings for 180 condo corporations. He questions whether companies like his even have the legal right to share those email addresses with anyone, let alone the CAO. “What they’ve done is intrusive,” Mr. Weinberg said. “I don’t know how they got approval to do it, but we’re certainly not going to allow them to violate individual people’s rights by giving them access without their permission.”
In two emailed statements, the CAO confirmed it had amended the form, but said that its aims are consistent with privacy rules. It said that in 2022 the CAO developed an email newsletter aimed at condo owners, but it has had limited uptake: “Very few of the 900,000-[plus] unit owners in Ontario receive the newsletter and other CAO communications directly from us.” The CAO’s goal, it said, was to “discuss how we might engage with owners directly without compromising privacy” in service of “alleviating a burden on condo corporations to share our information.”
“More than 3,500 condo corporations have filed their returns this year and of those, 58 per cent indicated that they are willing to collaborate with CAO on how to connect with owners,” the CAO statement said.
But that number may be misleading. Some managers say they checked ‘Yes’ to a discussion, but only so they can make clear they will say ‘No’ to a request to contact their owners.
“I couldn’t give [emails] out to a car dealer or a real estate agent,” said Dean McCabe, president of condo management company The Meritus Group. “It’s no different [for the CAO]. That’s what our counsel has told us.”
According to condo law expert Rod Escayola, Ontario’s Condominium Act sets out strict boundaries that a collaboration with the CAO cannot cross.
“It would be improper, in my view, for managers to provide any personal data, including email addresses, to the CAO,” said Mr. Escayola. “Unless and until regulation is changed to authorize such disclosure. Owners’ email information is obtained by managers for purposes set out in the Condominium Act – not to become the CAO’s marketing trampoline.”
The CAO is what’s known as an administrative authority. It is not an Ontario government body but operates parts of the province’s regulatory framework for condos on the province’s behalf. Among the duties it carries out is the management of the Condominium Appeals Tribunal where owners and corporations can resolve disputes.
As Mr. Escayola notes, one of the CAT’s early rulings dealt with the subject of emails and found the Act does not provide a right for even owners in a condo to collect the email addresses of other owners in their building.
The Condominium Management Regulatory Authority of Ontario was created at the same time as the CAO and performs an over-lapping function of licensing the property managers who run the day-to-day affairs of most condos in the province, and its code of ethics specifically prohibits managers from sharing condo owner digital data with third parties.
Canada’s federal legislation in this area – The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act – focuses heavily on consent. According to privacy law expert Scott Lamb, a partner with Clark Wilson LLP, it is possible that if the CAO gets and uses email contacts that weren’t expressly granted to them by owners it could face complaints to Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
“The Privacy Commissioner has these tests of, ‘Are there other ways to manage this problem without collecting this information?’,” said Mr. Lamb. “There’s gonna be lawyers that are going to provide advice, and they will default to, ‘You go get consent.’ They [CAO] may be forced ultimately into sending out requests — in writing, in hard copy — confirming, ‘Do you want to receive this stuff?’”
In a second statement, the CAO offered further clarification on its position. “The questions were not directed to managers and were not asking condominium corporations for a list of owner email addresses. Our ask is for voluntary sign-up for a consultation. As always, CAO respects the data and privacy provisions of the Act.”
Mr. Escayola’s view is the entire exercise is ill-advised.
“In fairness to the CAO, the objective is a laudable one. I suspect it’s in the context of to improve how they service the industry,” he said. “But the wise move is to remove that question and probably ignore all the ‘Yesses’ they got.”
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
