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Monetary Sanctions for Bylaw infractions
In the 2021 ACT it read “A monetary sanction or range of sanctions may be imposed, must be IN the bylaws”. If a bylaw refers only to a reference number in the Act, is that sufficient to impose a monetary sanction for an infraction to a bylaw.
If the bylaws are old and the reference number is out of date, does one go back to the original ACT at the time that the bylaws were registered in order to determine the allowable amount for the monetary sanction?
If yes, how does one go about finding the older published versions of the Act? It’s difficult to find with google.
Thank you
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13 Replies
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Hi anonymous1,
The current Condominium Property Act is the law of the land. Unless the current act allows for differences from the act by specifically saying ‘or bylaws’, the Act and the Regulations take precedence.
in the case of monetary sanctions on ‘rules’ that have not been put into the bylaws, that is completely not allowed for under the current Act.
Hope that helps.
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I make the distinction in my mind between bylaws and rules as follows.
The bylaws if violated can have a monetary sanction whereas rules are just more clarification or an extension to a bylaw already set up. Eg Dogs allowed with approval. The rule could be established to say, form X must be used. No monetary sanction can be made to rules.
A bylaw can say you must not hang laundry from the building. So a monetary sanction is allowed if it says so in the bylaws. If the bylaws only refer to “may exercise the powers provided for in section X of the ACT”, and this goes back several years so the referred to section in the ACT no longer corresponds, where does that leave one? There is no actual mention of sanction amounts in the bylaw so does that mean it defaults to the sanction amounts quoted in the current version of the ACT? There is no mention in the bylaws of using the updated ACT.
thanks
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I agree with Phil.
The statement you emphasized A monetary sanction or range of sanctions may be imposed, must be IN the bylaws means that your bylaws must state how much the condo corporation can monetarily sanction a unit. If your bylaws do not say you can monetarily sanction a unit, and how much you can charge for each sanction, then the condo corporation can only issue non-monetary sanctions. I hope that makes sense.
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That makes perfect sense to me and that is in fact what I am hoping to determine from a legal point of view. There would have been monetary sanction limits in the ACT, at the start of the bylaws. If the current bylaw makes a reference to the ACT ref number X, and this is now obsolete and doesn’t correspond to the issue of sanctions anymore, does one in fact have the right to issue a monetary sanction?
Very complicated to explain this sorry.
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Looks like the consensus of opinion on this matter is that the current Act takes precedence over your bylaws, as there are no options on sanctions other than to follow the current rules on sanctions that are stated in the current Act. That fact that your bylaw allowed for sanctions is enough to allow you to provide for sanctions that your original bylaws permitted and you must follow the directives in the current Act as to the process and the amounts.
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Agree with all that has been stated by responders. Basically, any RULES need a direct path back to the bylaws, and vice-versa and the sanction options need to be clear in the bylaws. Also, only the current Act/Regulations apply, so it is probably irrelevant as to the Act/Regulations in effect when your bylaws were passed. Also, you may want to review when the last time your RULES, in a consolidated format, were provided to owners. If this was not done in the past couple of years, you may not have any legally enforceable rules in effect. Issuing new rules (or a fully consolidated set if rectifying a gap in issuance) has a 30 day time period before they become effective. Exception is rules related to safety/security that might need immediate effect.
I hope that all the comments are helpful
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If there is no record of the Rules being voted on by the Board as a current list of Rules, I would imagine I would be in the right not to obey them until they had been voted on as actually being the Rules. I know about the 30 day notice and also that all the old Rules were repealed in 2020 sometime so that a new set would have to be reviewed, voted on and then distributed. So Rules with no Board vote would not be Rules that anyone would have to follow?
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When I worked in government many years ago, we were required to prepare documents in a particular format for Cabinet’s approval. I adapted it for use in a condominium corporation and modified it again as a guide to follow for present-day use. Please make sure you cover what legislation and regulation require by quoting them. The essential part is identifying where the authority to do what you want comes from.
(Your name) Condominium Corporation – Policy (& Rule)
Policy Type: Framework / Self-Governance / Operational / Advocacy
Policy / Rule Title:
Authority: (The Section of the CP Act, Regulation or Bylaws that authorises this policy or rule)
Date of Adoption: (Board Meeting date) Date of Review: (Board Meeting date) [This might be a future date, such as one year, to ensure rules are reviewed and kept current]
Intent: What this policy or rule is trying to achieve and why.
Policy / Rule:
1. Several lines and sub-headings, as may be required.
Feel free to change it for your circumstances.
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I need clarity: if the by-laws do NOT state an amount(s) for the fines levied against an owner, then fines cannot be levied? Our by-laws say something to the effect of “fines can be levied at the discretion of the board”, but no fine amounts are shown. So what I am gleaning from this is that every owner in our complex that has received a nasty letter from our property manager stating we will be fined for whatever they/the board believe is a by-law infraction can only be fined if the fine amounts are explicitly itemized in the by-laws?
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Hello Leslie
During the Ask the Lawyer forum that took place a few months back, this question came up.
Does the amount of the sanction have to be in the Bylaws. After reviewing the legislation and after some discussion amongst the 3 lawyers, they concluded that yes, the monetary sanction amount must be in the bylaws, not just an open reference to it. They started out with differing opinions and ended up with a consensus.
That is what I took away from that discussion.
I had hoped they would say something like the maximum sanction may be applied in accordance with the amount indicated in the current legislation, but nope, it has to be explicitly listed in the bylaws. This is a bit of a pain in the neck if the amount is changed often. You don’t want to have to change your bylaws all the time. Costly venture that would be.
That was my take away from that meeting unless I misunderstood it.
Angelica
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