Dirty tactics

There is a number of tactics that the incumbents, with a little bit of help from the hired help, can use to make sure that they stay in power.

Unfair advantages
Board members may do owners certain favours such as allowing a second vehicle to park in the Visitor’s Parking for a period of time, help a disabled person get a better parking spot or improved access to the building. A “No Pets” rule could be ignored for an “invisible cat” or if someone is babysitting a relative’s dog for a couple of weeks.

Perhaps an owner will have a Party Room rental fee wavered or will be given permission to use an elevator to move an appliance during irregular hours.

Having access to the owners’ e-mail addresses gives the board the opportunity to send election material prior to the Annual General Meetings and to solicit proxies from the absentee owners.

The board has another huge advantage. The manager and the lawyer may actively help the incumbents get reelected.

The board members, the management company employees, the superintendent and the security guards may be pressed into telephoning owners requesting proxies. The corporation pays for all of this, including the long-distance telephone charges. The lawyer chairs the AGM and vets the proxies. (Little wonder a new board may replace all of these contractors as soon as they win office.)

Access to the voters
Most buildings have a no-solicitation rule that they impose on unwelcome candidates. Nowhere in the Act does it state that candidates running for condo elections, and their supporters, are to be given access for election campaigning.

Candidates that go door-to-door seeking support will find that some owners resent their presence. Some support the incumbents and others do not want anyone to bother them for any reason so they may complain to the manager or to security.

The building superintendent or the security guards may challenge canvassers, demanding that they stop. The police may be called in to threaten the candidates or their supporters with trespassing charges. (The police presence is just an intimidation tactic as you are an owner of the common elements as well as your private unit.)

The manager and the incumbents claim that the opposition canvassers are “interfering with the owners’ quiet enjoyment of their units and being disruptive and even harassing or frightening the owners.

The board’s opponents may receive a lawyer’s letter saying that they are disturbing the owner’s quiet enjoyment of their units and in are in breach of the rules. The canvassers may find that they are being billed $650 or more for the cost of the letter with a threat that if the bill isn’t paid within 12 days, the corporation will put a lien on their unit.

Yet the board members and their supporters may go knocking on doors as anything they do is “board business” and is acceptable.

At some condos, the incumbents will run a phone bank using the corporation’s records to telephone all the owners to request proxies. This is when the owners are reminded of the “favours” they have been granted. Then they just have to go to the units and pick them up.

Access to the records
An owner who is a declared candidate for position on the board has the right to examine the list of owners and their contact information. This list cannot be legally withheld from the candidate. Yet some boards ignore the request. Other boards give an outdated list or only the names and addresses but withhold the phone numbers.

Yet, far too often, the managers/board refuse to give the challenging candidates a copy of the register. Yet, the incumbents and their supporters freely use the owners register to help them collect proxies by knocking on doors, to phone and to e-mail the absentee owners.

Discouraging democracy
That is why many owners run for election only once. One unfair election is enough to turn most candidates off.

Election fraud
I have written four full chapters on condo election fraud. It is far more common that I ever expected


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