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Vexatious owners

Sennek v. Carleton Condominium Corporation No. 116
Laurentian Bank of Canada—non party
Ontario Superior Court of Justice
Court File No. CV-15-66501
Before: Justice L. Sheard
22 March 2018

Costs Decision
This tragedy started started simply enough. Manorama Sennek owns/owned a condo in a 213 unit corporation in Ottawa.

She had a flower box did not comply with the condo’s rules. In 2015, the board ordered it removed. Then the corporation registered a $763 lien against her unit to recover the costs of having a contractor remove the flower box.

The owner battled the condo over this minor issue as hard and as long as she could. Finally, after almost three years of legal battles, she was declared vexatious and this judgment was to determine the costs that the condo corporation would be awarded.

Bad decisions
Here is a list of the bad decisions, that I see, that both the owner and her mortgagee made:


It appears that she either did not get legal advice from a lawyer experienced in condo law or she decided to ignore that advice.

She did not take down the flower box and then did not pay up when the condo hired a contractor to take it down.

She did not pay the $763 lien. Then sell if she was bitter.

She decline to accept the condo corporation's two offers to settle.

The Laurentian Bank of Canada ignored the lien when the condo corporation first informed them of it.

Costs
The owner was ordered to pay costs of $109,925. Of that amount, $85,000 was secured by a lien on the condominium unit in priority to the Laurentian Bank of Canada mortgage.

Who lost?
In my opinion everyone involved. The owner may, or may not, be able to retain ownership of her home. If the unit is put up for sale, the bank may not recover enough from sale price to recover the remainder of the mortgage.

The condo corporation will have to find other means to recover the $25,000 in legal costs that they did not recover.

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