A palace coup


From time to time, a board may be split; three against two. The two sides are feuding and the minority feels that their concerns are being ignored by the majority. On important issues, the votes always goes three against two.

That is when one of the minority directors may decide to alter the balance of power by starting a requisition to remove one director and change the makeup of the majority.

If one of the majority seems venerable, great that will make it easier. However, it appears that most times, the disgruntled director tries to remove the president.

The president responds
When presented with a requisition for her removal, the president may respond by claiming that the dissident director; among other things:
• is a troublemaker.
• is looking for bribes.
• is not following the corporation's rules & by-laws.
• wants to raise your fees.
• will give us a special assessment.
• will run the building down.
• will force you to get rid of your renters, extra pets, BBQ, etc.

Go on the offence
On two occasions, late in 2016, when facing a requisition from a disgruntled director, or in the second case two directors, the president responded by organizing a requisition against the rebels.

As the examples below show, this can be a very effective tactic.

Example #1
On the first occasion, at a small 70 unit townhouse complex in the GTA, a director organized a requisition to remove the president because she claimed that:

•	he was extremely rude and foul-mouthed at board meetings.
•	he was squandering all the corporation's money on unnecessary contracts and upgrades.
•	the monthly fees were too high and that was affecting property values.
•	important safety concerns were being ignored.
•	the president would not listen to the minority directors' concerns.

In response, the president claimed:

•	the previous board let the property get run down and he was getting it back into shape.
•	the dissident director was ignoring the condo's by-laws by renting her basement out to a student.
•	he promised that the 2017 monthly fees would not go up and that there would not be any special assessments.

At the Special Owners Meeting, the dissident director failed to muster enough votes to remove the president while the president got enough votes to remove the dissident director.

The accusations that she was renting her basement was what got over 50% of the owners to remove her from the board.

Example #2
A 700 unit condo in northwest Toronto had about five requisition meetings in the last six years with the last one a few months ago where four directors were thrown off the board because they raised the monthly fees in order to pay for much needed major repairs.

The new directors hired a forensic company to try to find evidence of fraud, or at least wasteful spending put came up empty handed.

It did not take long for the board to start fighting among itself and the board split. Two directors organized a petition for a requisition meeting to remove the president.

In response, the president had enough owners sign a requisition to replace the two directors and a Special Owners Meeting was scheduled two days before Christmas.

In response, the two directors made an application to Superior Court for a court order to stop the meeting and to apply for a court-appointed administrator with very limited powers.

At the last moment both sides came to an agreement to cancel the Special Owners Meeting and so Court Application CV-16-00566255-0000 came to naught.

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