Condo Conversation Corner - Summer 2025

Article from Volume 12, Issue Number 3, 2025

Condo Conversation Corner - Summer 2025

By Alan Forbes | Other articles by Alan Forbes | Regular Column

Note that frequent references are made to Manitoba’s Condominium Act (the act) and Manitoba’s Condominium Regulation (the regulation.)

Condo director term limits

We received an interesting inquiry from a condo corporation that had updated its bylaws a few years ago to stagger the terms of its five directors, so that each year either two or three director positions would be up for election for two-year terms. Over the course of a few years, they got out of sync due to a director resigning mid-term and/or being voted out by the owners before the director’s term ended.

The board vacancies were handled by the board using all of the available options — appointing a replacement, the owners electing a replacement and keeping the vacancy without affecting quorum until the next owners’ meeting. The net result was they no longer had the alternating terms of two directors and three directors and instead had four directors coming up for election one year followed by only one director the next year.

Neither the act nor their bylaws provide any guidance on how to correct the problem. As well, they struggled to figure out where they went wrong. For reference, here are the pertinent clauses in the act.

Removal and replacement
101(1) A director may be removed before the end of the director's term of office by a vote at a general meeting of unit owners. Another director may be elected for the remainder of the term.

Vacancy
102(1) If a vacancy arises on a board, the remaining directors may exercise all the powers of the board as long as a quorum remains in office.

Replacement made by the directors
102(2) If a vacancy arises on the board and a quorum remains in office, the majority of the remaining directors may appoint any person qualified to be a director to fill the vacancy until the next general meeting of unit owners.

Unit owners may elect replacement or decrease number of directors
102(3) At that meeting, the unit owners who are present in person or by proxy must either
(a) elect a person to fill the vacancy; or
(b) vote to decrease the number of directors, but only if the decrease does not result in fewer directors than are required by the declaration or bylaws.

Replacement's term of office
102(4) The person elected to fill the vacancy holds office for the remainder of the term of the director whose position became vacant.

Vacancy results in loss of quorum
102(5) If a vacancy arises on the board and there are not enough directors remaining in office to constitute a quorum, the remaining directors must, within 30 days after losing quorum, call a general meeting of unit owners to fill all vacancies as soon as practicable.

Key points from the act are that appointed replacements serve only until the next owners’ meeting per 1012(2), whereas elected replacements serve until the end of the term per 102(4).

The fix to get back to the three and two staggered terms is simple: At the next owners’ meeting, instead of all directors being elected to two-year terms, have one director’s term be either one year or three years.

While this would appear to violate the two-year term requirement in the bylaw, it’s important to recall why bylaws are being updated to the alternating two-year term approach: It’s to mitigate against the risk of losing too much of the board's knowledge and experience in a given year. Basically, the bylaws were updated to incorporate ideas from succession planning.

Should boards proactively publish meeting minutes?

We had an inquiry from a member who moved to Manitoba recently and was surprised that her condo board did not proactively publish its meeting minutes. That’s what was done at her prior condo in another province.

There is nothing in the act that mandates the proactive distribution of board meeting minutes. However, the act does provide for unit owners requesting minutes and the corporation having to provide copies, per section 132 of the act, which says:

Condominium corporation must provide copies
132(1) Upon request, a condominium corporation must, within a reasonable time, provide copies of its records to a unit owner, unit mortgagee, buyer or prospective buyer or an agent of any of them for examination. The corporation may charge a reasonable fee for labour and copying charges.

This topic was discussed during the Q&A segment of the CCI Manitoba education event recorded on 2022-02-17 and titled You Can’t Please People All The Time! (Here is a link to the recording - the Q&A starts at the 48:43 mark). The segment discusses proactively publishing minutes and not redacting, but does allow for in camera portions of meetings, which would be documented separately.

A 2022 article by Elia Associates titled Maybe Don't Post Those Board Meeting Minutes After All discusses meeting minutes and redactions and recommends not proactively posting minutes to all unit owners and supplying minutes only when requested, with the option of redacting at that time.

Fees for condo docs

We often get inquiries about whether there are standard rates for condo corporations to provide documents such as disclosure statements and status certificates. We recently received such an inquiry from a self-managed condo corporation. All property managers have their own rates, but what about self-managed condo corporations?

The act provides very little in this regard, but does discuss it in section 53:

Condominium corporation may charge fees
53(3) A condominium corporation may charge reasonable fees for providing documents or information under this section.

In Ontario, condo regulations prescribe $100 for a status certificate

(4) The fee that a corporation may charge for providing a status certificate, including all material that is required to be included in it, shall not exceed $100, inclusive of all applicable taxes. O. Reg. 428/19, s. 15 (1).

That said, an article published in May 2025 by CondoBusiness, part of the REMI network, titled Status certificates 101: Proposed price hike and why a thorough review matters, indicates a steep price increase is on the horizon for Ontario. It says:

“One of the most important documents in a condo transaction is the status certificate — and its price may be set for a sharp increase. The Association of Condominium Managers of Ontario has formally asked the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement to raise the fee to $500.”

The article provides a good overview of the importance of status certificates and what they contain (at least in Ontario; for Manitoba, here is a link to the form).

Back to the original question, though, there are no standard rates, so what would be reasonable? And is what is determined to be reasonable based on the document provider or the document recipient?

If you want to contribute to the discussion, you can submit a comment on our website or send us an email.