Condo board forces owner out In a recent ruling, an Ontario court issued an order compelling a condo owner in Toronto to vacate and sell her unit within 3 months. The case summarizes the condo owner's behaviour as including "physical assaults on other unit holders, acts of mischief against their property, racist and homophobic slurs and threats repeatedly made against other unit holders, playing extremely loud music at night, watching and besetting other unit holders and using her large and aggressive dog to frighten and intimidate other unit holders and their children." The Condominium Act prohibits condo owners from damaging property, or doing anything which might cause injury to an individual. A condominium board is required to ensure that the Act is being complied with. In Toron...
Ontario condominium survey Give your feedback to the Ontario government if you've had any positive, or negative, experiences with condominiums. The survey, launched in July, contains questions such as whether you've ever had a dispute with a condominium board of directors, or whether you're satisfied with the funding of the condominium reserve fund for your building. I think it's helpful that the government is asking current condominium owners about their experiences. But, it's people who've never bought a condominium before that need to be educated, not people who already own one. You need consumer awareness of how a condominium works (and whether it suits your lifestyle) before you buy a condominium, not after the fact. From my perspective, one limitation of the current legislation i...
Reality TV comes to Ottawa! At long last, Ottawa is soon to be home to a new real-estate based reality TV show. Realtor Paul Rushforth, and interior designer, Penny Southam, are being featured in a new show called 'All for Nothing'. Two sets of competing homeowners are challenged with who can best prepare their houses for sale. Unlike some other shows, the premise of this show is that the homeowners do whatever renovation or repair work is necessary in order to list the property themselves, rather than hiring contractors. Homeowners are competing for the prize that Paul Rushworth will list their home for sale at zero commission. If you are interested in being cast for this show, you can check out the production company's website. The show premieres October 7th on the W network. Kerry ...
Are you worried about bed bugs? According to a recent article in the Toronto Star, some who work in the real estate industry are wondering when home buyers will start including conditions in their offers with respect to whether a property is contaminated with bedbugs. Apparently, in many major cities, the incidents of bedbugs are on the rise in residential apartments, condos, houses, and even commercial buildings. They are difficult to get rid of and spread very easily. I don't know of any recent outbreaks in Ottawa, but there have been outbreaks in Toronto, Calgary, Regina and Vancouver. What can you do to protect yourself as a home or condo buyer? Like most things involving buying a property, the rule of thumb is always "buyer beware". It's probably better to hire an inspector to tell...
Do real estate lawyers work in "puppy mills"? Have you ever wondered what is the biggest area of negligence claims against Ontario lawyers? As it turns out, it's in real estate law! According to a recent article in the Law Times, 36% of all claims involving Ontario lawyers involved real estate law. What's to account for this high concentration of claims in one area of law? As the article mentions, there's no doubt that some lawyers dabble in real estate law. However, many lawyers concentrate a good percentage of their time doing real estate closings, but are faced with the same pressures as any other business owner to keep their costs down in order to stay competitive in the marketplace. I love a quote in the Law Times article which describes some law offices with high volume real esta...
Regulations may be coming for mortgage prepayment penalties With interest rates as low as they've been in years, many people selling their homes or refinancing have been faced with tremendous prepayment penalties. Although you can negotiate the penalty if you stay with the same lender, a lender isn't going to waive a prepayment penalty completely unless they can charge you a higher interest rate for the term of the loan. The penalties are based on what is called ‘the interest rate differential', essentially, the difference between the rate you are paying and the rate the lender could charge you, or someone else, for a new loan. If you know you're going to be breaking your mortgage early, and you've sat down and tried to calculate your prepayment penalty, good luck. Even if consumers...
Do you have right to use a mutual driveway? There was an article in the Toronto Star recently about a couple who purchased a home in Toronto. After closing, they objected to their neighbour continuing to use a driveway located on their property in order to access the garage at the back of the neighbour's house. Many older properties in older neighbourhoods do not have parking at the front of the house, but in the rear. In this case, accessing the garage required driving down a driveway sandwiched between their house and the abutting owner's house. According to the new owner, there was no right of way registered on title relating to use of the driveway. On the other hand, the neighbour alleged that he has been using the driveway to get to his garage for 33 years. Who's in the right? ...
