Condominium Directors

What does the board of directors do?
The Condominium Act 1998 says that the “board of directors shall manage the affairs of the corporation.” [1]

Who can be a director?
Any “typical” person can be a condominium corporation director.

But what is a “typical” person?
Well, a “typical” person is a person like you and me: [2]
- an adult (i.e., 18 years or older);
- not in bankruptcy now (i.e., not an undischarged bankrupt);
- not insane, nor mentally challenged (i.e., not a mentally incompetent person).

So, according to the Act, a director does not have to be a unit owner of the condo, nor someone living in the condo.

In fact the person can be totally unrelated to a condo. Hypothetically, if you ask John Doe, who just happens to be walking by, to be a director of a condo corporation, and if he agrees to it, and gets elected at the AGM, then he is a director of the condo corporation.

Thus it really does not matter whether any of the directors are closely or loosely related (such as siblings, parents and children, or spouses). As a matter of fact, the 880 Grandview Way building (TSCC 1446) in its first year (2002), two of the directors were husband and wife. And this year (2009), again two of the directors are husband and wife.

[Note 1] The Condominium Act 1998, section 27, subsection 1.
A board of directors shall manage the affairs of the corporation.

[Note 2] The Condominium Act 1998, Section 29, subsection 1.
No person shall be a director if,
(a) the person is under eighteen years of age;
(b) the person is an undischarged bankrupt; or
(c) the person is a mentally incompetent person.

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Condominium Corporation

Every condo in Ontario by law has to have a condominium corporation. By what law? By the Ontario Condominium Act.

What is a condominium corporation for?

Its existence is to manage the operations and to protect the common interests of the condominium on behalf of all unit owners. A condominium corporation is different from a business corporation that one often hears about; it is a not-for-profit corporation. It is created by the builder, when developing the condominium project, at a certain specific stage by registering the condominium with the Land Registry Office.

Condominium matters are not a federal thing but a provincial thing; i.e., it falls within the provincial jurisdiction. Therefore the Condominium Act in Ontario is not the same as a condominium act in another province.

Ontario condominium corporations have been governed by the Ontario Condominium Act since 1978 (the “old” Act). In December 1998, the Ontario Government substantially revised the “old” Act into the “new” Act, the Condominium Act 1998, which came into force two years later on May 5th, 2001.

Each condominium corporation is given a “name”, which consists of a designation and a number. In the Grandview Way residential complex, for example, the casitas is MTCC 1113, and the 88 Grandview Way building is MTCC 1132, while the 880 Grandview Way building is TSCC 1446.

But what do “MTCC” and “TSCC” mean? MTCC stands for “Metropolitan Toronto Condominium Corporation”, and means that the condo was registered under the old Act. TSCC stands for “Toronto Standard Condominium Corporation”, and means that the condo was registered under the new Act.

Technically, the legal name of a condo is the fully spelled name of MTCC or TSCC, not just the abbreviation “MTCC” or “TSCC”. For example, the 88 Grandview Way is "Metropolitan Toronto Condominium Corporation No. 1132", and the 880 Grandview Way is "Toronto Standard Condominium Corporation No. 1146."

Other regions have different designations. For example, north of Toronto, York Region condos are either “York Condominium Corporation” (or YCC) under the old Act, or “York Region Standard Condominium Corporation” (or YRSCC) under the new Act.

The numbering at the end of the condo’s name is just a number in sequence to distinguish one condo from another, and is unique within each region. That means, Toronto maintains its own sequence while York Region maintains its own separate sequence.

And you probably guessed it, the smaller the number, the older the condo. In general, condos with close numbers mean that they were built at around the same time.

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