Ontario condos will soon have a new way of dealing with problem residents

Substantial changes are coming to the Ontario Condominium Act, laying out a new framework for how condos will deal with problem residents.

The changes come into effect on January 1, 2022, the most noticeable of which is an expansion of the Condominium Authority Tribunal’s (CAT) jurisdiction.

The CAT — Ontario’s online tribunal that helps resolve condo-related disputes — will now have the authority to handle disputes involving nuisances, annoyances, and disruptions. These issues were dealt with either through mediation, arbitration, or the courts, which could lead to lengthy (and very costly) proceedings. Under the current rules, owners who rent out their condo(s) to problem tenants could be stuck paying the court costs for these disputes.

“I believe the intention is to provide a quicker and more-cost effective dispute resolution mechanism,” explained attorney Natalia Polis of Toronto-based Lash Condo Law. “Through the court system, sometimes these disputes get dragged out, and all parties incur significant costs. CAT is a lot more streamlined, and the disputes do not take as long to resolve and the costs incurred are generally less.”

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The pending changes also lay out specific categories of nuisances, which include odour, smoke, vapour, light, and vibration. If a resident is found to have an “unreasonable” level of these, they can be brought before CAT. Whether something is unreasonable would be determined on a case-by-case basis, Polis says.

“For instance, in noise disputes, we would look for how frequently the resident causes excessive noise, the volume of the noise, the type of noise disturbance — is it a regular household noise or is it loud music? — and the time the noise occurred — 1 pm on the weekend or 1 am on a weekday? — etc.,” Polis said. “There is no typical standard, but in a condominium corporation, there is no right to absolute silence, so owners and residents should be cognizant that living in such close proximity with one another, regular household noise is permissible and would likely not constitute a nuisance.”

It’s important to note that these changes wouldn’t have a direct impact on whether a landlord could more easily evict a tenant from their condo, as those issues are overseen by the Landlord and Tenant Board, which operates separately. However, it is possible that a CAT dispute may help strengthen their case for eviction in front of the Landlord and Tenant Board.

“The amendments may in an indirect way impact proceedings before the Landlord and Tenant Board,” Polis said. “For instance, if a condominium corporation brings a nuisance dispute forward to CAT, the landlord may use evidence and/or any order obtained against a tenant before their Landlord and Tenant Board proceeding.”