Seven directors removed

The seven person board at a large stacked townhouse complex in Mississauga was in difficulties.

Originally build with large three and four-bedroom units, instead of remaining a community of single-family units, the complex turned into overcrowded rooming houses with a large number of absentee owners.

The condo had serious financial difficulties and was in disrepair. On top of that, the board broke out into infighting between a thin majority that wanted to raise the monthly maintenance expenses and a minority that did not.

Court-appointed administration?
The board was at an impasse. They did not have ability to raise the expenses so the majority of the directors decided to apply to Superior Court for an administrator.

The Application was filed. Then the majority split due to there being three groups fighting for power. The board withdrew the Application for a court-appointed administrator and the board remained broken into three factions.

Requisition to replace the directors
The owners, normally split into to separate ethnic groups band together and organized a requisition to replace all seven directors.

The board called a Special Owners Meeting to hold the vote on the requisition.

The meeting
The meeting started badly. The board had two lawyers from the corporation's law firm attend the meeting. One of them intended to chair the meeting.

The majority of the owners were adamant that the corporations lawyers were not to have any part of the meeting and that the lawyer that the requistionists hired would chair the meeting.

The board yielded and the requistionists' lawyer chaired the meeting.

The vote
All seven directors, including the two that did not even bother to attend the meeting, were successfully removed.

Election for replacement directors
The coalition slate's seven candidates were elected from a large number of candidates that ran for a seat on the board.

What was interesting is that one of the directors that was removed by the requisition, stood for re-election. (Why not? There is nothing to prevent this from happening.)

She made a short speech stating that she was in favour of freezing the monthly fees and that because of all her experience, she would be a big help to the new directors. The owners rejected her kind offer.

Outcome
Four years later, I find that the only thing that has changed is that there is no political infighting. The old directors have given up. The one ethnic group, who are in the majority, have taken control of the board.

The property management company and the law firm were replaced. The monthly maintenance fees have been reduced by 5%. They have had one AGM in the last four years.

The only major repairs that are done are those that are mandated by city building or fire inspectors.

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