Owners: know what you bought into

Have you read your Declaration, By-laws and Rules? Probably not.

Long list of rules pits Mississauga neighbours against townhouse board

Owners not given given a choice when board decided to paint garage doors
CBC News (abridged)
11 November 2024

A Mississauga, Ont., couple is in the midst of a war of words with their townhouse complex's board of directors — which a handful of residents say is imposing unnecessarily strict new rules on the complex's roughly 140 homeowners.

Janet Kitson said her problems began in 2022, when some new members joined the board of directors at 3050 Orleans Rd., in the Winston Churchill Boulevard-Dundas Street neighbourhood.

That board issued an updated set of regulations that residents must live by — standard procedure for most condos and townhouse complexes. But on Orleans Road, that list grew from about 30 in 2010, the last time the list was updated, to more than 70 in 2022.

The new list includes regulations barring people from painting their fences, residents say, as well as limiting what pets they can own and banning certain plants from people's gardens.

"It's frustrating. It's stressful," Kitson said. "You need rules so there isn't anarchy, (but) this is almost like dog eat dog."

Kitson said the battles between her and her allies, and the board and its supporters, have divided the complex and shattered at least one of her friendships. 

"In the last two years, it's become not a community," she said. "Everybody's watching everybody else."

This news story gives the impression that an owner and her allies have been hard done by and the Board is terribly unfair.

Sorry, I don’t buy it.

In a condo townhouse complex, the condo corporation owns the fences, the front and back yards and the outside part of the garage doors. The owners have exclusive use of the front and backyards but they do not own them.

The Board cannot be expected to ask all the owners if they will give permission for them to paint the common element garage doors.

The owners don’t own the fences so they don’t get to decide what colour they will be.

Can the owner have her gazebo grandfathered? Maybe. She should ask a lawyer that has experience in condominium law if it is likely and how much would it cost to take her dispute to Superior Court. If she can make a deal with the Board out of court, great. If not, then I suggest that she take her gazebo down.

I also suggest the the owner and her allies spend a few hours reading the condo:
1.) Declaration, then
2.) By-laws, then
3.) Rules.

Even better, read CondoMadness.org
Start with: The Governing Instruments

My final point

Don’t start a dispute with your Board unless you realize just how much time, money and stress it can cause you.