Inexperience hurts

A dozen or so owners at a new North York condo were frustrated with the poor building maintenance, rude behaviour by the office staff and a lack of amenities. They were also oppressed by a condo board that would not hold AGMs or let the owners examine the records. No one knew the condo's financial situation.

Aside from bickering and grumbling, not much was done aside from a dozen or so owners, seeing which way the condo was heading, sold their units and moved on. A small loss now seemed better than potentially bigger losses later.

A leader comes to fore
A quiet middle-aged owner decides that action is needed. She felt that there were enough upset owners that a requisition to replace the original three-man board could succeed. Through a condo owners' blog she got the name of a condo lawyer who listened to her story and drafted a proper requisition form.

Sure enough, there were enough owners grumbling. Some owners were quite pleased to give the woman advice and wish her well. Unfortunately, there were only a handful who would do any actual work.

Requisition
The manager ignored requests for a copy of the owners' registry so one volunteer went down to city hall and copied down the addresses of all the owners off the municipal tax records. Using this list, a small group of five owners went door-to-door asking owners to sign the petition. Some owners would not answer the door. The requistionists worked in pairs so they would have a witness to what was said.

One night at 10:30 pm, the woman was back home when there was a knock on her door. Two policeman said that they were there because they received a report that she was soliciting in the building and if she did not stop, they would arrest her for trespassing.

The woman tried to explain that she could not be charged with trespassing for being in her own home and on the common elements. She told them that her confederates and her had every right to collect signatures for a requisition. The two cops didn't buy it.

The next day, she and her son went to the police station where they explained the situation to the officer in charge. He stated that she would not be bothered again and he let her know that the security supervisor was the one who made the phone call.

The next night, the volunteers continued door knocking. When two women knocked on one door, a big man of about 210 pounds, opened the door, took a look at them, and shouted that they were frightening him and they should never bother him again. (He was a friend of the president and the board's supporters were told to say that.)

It took four nights to collect signatures from almost 25% of the owners. They then handed a copy of the requisition to the president and gave a copy to their lawyer.

The board reacts
Once the board had a copy of the requisition, the office staff and the security guards started phoning the owners urging them to withdraw their names from the requisition.

The callers reminded the owners that the board had not raised their fees in the last two years and promised that the fees would not be raised for a further two years. A couple of people recanted their signatures. They signed prepared statements that claimed that they signed the requisition because they did not understand what was being said and that the requistionists were mis-representing the facts.

The manager found three of the petitioners were not qualified to sign the requisition because they were renters and one owner who was in arrears. However the requisition stood because it contained sufficient signatures to force an owners meeting.

Meeting announced
The requistionists distributed a couple of flyers prior to the meeting while the management employees phoned the owners and promised to freeze the fees and hinted at retaliation if the owners wouldn't give their proxy to the board.

Registration
The requistionists handed in their proxies and the owners who showed up in person were given ballots. The board did not register their proxies but waited to see if the requistionists could meet quorum.

The meeting failed due to a failure to meet quorum. The requistionists needed 25% of all the owners, including the absentee owners and the owners of the commercial units to attend the meeting, either in person or by proxy. With over 33% of the units rented and 20% being commercial units, the requistionists couldn't get anywhere near the support they needed.

Why did they fail?
There were five reasons why the requisition failed.

1.	The board promised that they would not raise the monthly fees.
2.	The board had a block of votes from the commercial units and from 10 residential units that the developer still owned.
3.	The management company and the board intimidated some of the owners.
4.	Inexperience. The requistionists did not understand the Condo Act and how hard it would be to gain the owners' support.
5.	Ignorance & apathy. Many owners did not understand how badly the condo corporation was being managed and others didn't seem to care.

Outcome
The requistionist and most of the original owners sold and moved on.  In a five-year red hot real estate market, a few made a little, some broke even and most lost money.

Four years later, the owners successfully removed the board and the management company. The new board found that the finances were in such bad shape, the monthly fees were almost doubled.

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