Difficult president can be voted out with enough support

Must a condominium bylaw be approved at a general meeting of the owners?

Yes. A bylaw must be approved with, or without, amendment by an affirmative vote of the owners of a majority of the units. It must also be registered in the specified division of the Land Registry Office. Does the Condominium Act require minutes of owners meetings to be taken and made available to the owners? The Condominium Act requires a corporation to keep adequate records, including a minute book containing the minutes of meetings of the owners and of the board. Therefore, minutes of owners meetings must be taken.

The act does not require the corporation to make the minutes available to the owners unless an owner submits the prescribed form requesting to examine the minutes, in accordance with the act. In that event the minutes must be made available to the requesting owner.

Information must be deleted from the provided minutes relating to employees of the corporation, relating to actual or contemplated litigation and relating to specific owners or their units except for information relating to the requesting owner or that owner’s unit.

The president of our corporation is also the vicepresident, secretary and treasurer. He is impossible to work with and is making poor decisions. How do we remove him? Our problem is that no other owner wants the difficult job. Can we hire a property manager to deal with bookkeeping and other matters?

An owners meeting can be requisitioned — by 15 per cent of the owners — to vote on the removal of one or more directors. Removal requires an affirmative vote of owners of more than 50 per cent of the units. Those at the requisitioned meeting will then vote upon a replacement for each removed director. The president must be a director, so that if the director who is president is removed he is also removed as president. The board must then elect a new president and may then elect or appoint replacements for the offices of vice-president, secretary and treasurer, perhaps choosing different persons to spread the workload.

The workload for the new officers could also be lightened by engaging a management company to assist in the bookkeeping and other matters, provided that all substantive decisions of the corporation are made by the board and not by the management company.

Does the information provided in your column apply to all Canadian corporations?

The information applies to corporations governed by the Ontario Condominium Act and not to corporations governed by condominium acts of other provinces. Could a bylaw governing the qualifications of directors provide that an owner must live in the condominium for three years — or some other period — before being eligible to run for the board?

Yes.