Paid professional directors

The industry professionals in Ontario are toying with the idea that residential and multi-use condominiums need paid professional directors.

There is merit to this idea especially with the new huge multi-use condos that are being built. How can five or seven owners of residential units have any idea on how to direct condos that have 600 residential units plus ground floor retail units and also be a part of a large shared facilities corporation?

Professional directors can also be extremely effective in residential condos that have run into serious financial difficulties or are about to come out of court-appointed administration.

A seminar being held at the 2015 AMCO CCI-T conference

Implementation
If the majority of owners at an existing condo want paid directors that will be held to a higher standard of accountability than their existing amateur volunteers, there is nothing stopping them from hiring one or more professionals today.

All they need is for the owners of 50% plus one of the units to pass a by-law—it will need to be renewed every three years—stating the pay and benefits the job offers and then the directors can be elected or appointed at an owner's meeting. Condo Act Section 56.(2)

The concept of democracy
Democracy will be retained as the directors will need to be re-elected and the board will have to report on their performance at the AGMs.

So what is stopping it?
In theory? Nothing. Some condos, (mostly the self-governed ones) already give their directors some form of payments so this proposal will just raise the level of remuneration and bring it out into the open.

However, just wait until the owners hear that their directors want to get paid and listen to the howling.


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