Slee v. Peel Condominium Corporation No. 110, 2026 ONCAT 107

CONDOMINIUM AUTHORITY TRIBUNAL

DATE: June 9, 2026 CASE: 2025-00579R Citation: Slee v. Peel Condominium Corporation No. 110, 2026 ONCAT 107

Order under section 1.44 of the Condominium Act, 1998.

Member: Nicole Aylwin, Vice-Chair

The Applicant: Richard Slee, Self-Represented The Respondent: Peel Condominium Corporation No. 110, Represented by: Carol Dirks, Counsel

Hearing: Written Online Hearing – February 2, 2026 to June 4, 2026

REASONS FOR DECISION

A. INTRODUCTION

1The Applicant Richard Slee is the owner of a unit of Respondent, Peel Condominium Corporation No. 110 (“PCC 110” or the “corporation”). Mr. Slee made a records request on June 2, 2025, requesting core and non-core records. According to Mr. Slee, PCC 110 did not respond to his request in accordance with the timelines as set out in the Condominium Act, 1998 (the “Act”) and have, without reasonable excuse, refused him records to which he is entitled , specifically several sets of meeting minutes and a Class 3 – Reserve Fund Study update report. He requests the Tribunal order PCC 110 to produce the outstanding records and reimburse him for the Tribunal fees he paid.

2PCC 110 acknowledges that it was late in responding to Mr. Slee’s requests but maintains that it has now provided all records to which Mr. Slee is entitled. It asserts that any remaining records sought by Mr. Slee either do not exist, were not approved at the time requested, or are not records within the meaning of the Act. PCC 110 has requested that the Tribunal dismiss this application with either no costs or at most reimbursement of Mr. Slee’s filing fees.

3For the reasons that follow, I find that PCC 110 did refuse to provide some records to Mr. Slee without a reasonable excuse. However, I will not order PCC 110 to produce any additional records, since, as explained in this decision, Mr. Slee now has all the records to which he is entitled. I also order PCC 110 to pay Mr. Slee $200 to reimburse him for his Tribunal filing fees.

B. ISSUES & ANALYSIS

4At the outset of the hearing, I confirmed with the parties that the following issues are to be determined in this case:

1. Did the Respondent comply with its statutory duties relating to the request for records process?
2. Has the Respondent, without a reasonable excuse, refused to provide records to the Applicant to which he is entitled? If so, should a penalty be ordered under s. 1.44 (1) 6 of the Act and in what amount?
3. Has the Respondent failed to keep adequate records as per the Act?
4. Is either party entitled to costs?

5During the course of the hearing, Mr. Slee advised that he no longer wished to pursue a penalty, recognizing that any penalty awarded would, in essence, be paid collectively by owners and he had no desire to have owners incur additional costs. He also advised that he was no longer pursing the issue of adequacy. Accordingly, I address only the remaining issues in this decision (issues 1, 2 and 4).

Issue No. 1 & 2: Did the Respondent comply with its statutory duties relating to the request for records process? Has PCC 110 refused to provide Mr. Slee with records to which he is entitled without a reasonable excuse?

6On June 2, 2025, Mr. Slee submitted a request for records to the corporation (the “Request”). On July 3, 2025, having received no response to his request, Mr. Slee followed up with the corporation’s condominium manager, Yolanda Guitar, who acknowledged that she had missed the request, but would begin to work on the request immediately and get back to him as soon as possible.

7As there was no further response from the corporation, on or around August 10, 2025, Mr. Slee filed his Tribunal application.

8On August 12, 2025, the corporation sent the Board’s Response to Request for Records along with 13 sets of minutes, redacted pursuant to s. 55 (4) of the Act.

9According to Ms. Guitar, after August 12, 2025, PCC 110 provided Mr. Slee with four additional sets of minutes.

10On or about June 9, 2025, Mr. Slee obtained a draft copy of the Comprehensive Reserve Fund Study (“Comprehensive Study”) that appears to have been sent to all owners – not specifically to him in response to his request. However, this was not the document Mr. Slee was seeking or had requested. He was seeking a Class 3 Reserve Fund study he believed had been completed in spring of 2024.

11Mr. Slee argues that PCC 110 continues to refuse him the following records:

1. Minutes of meetings held on: July 8, 2024, September 30, 2024, and January 27, 2025
2. “Digital meeting minutes” from meetings that Mr. Slee claims were held virtually
3. A Class 3 Reserve Fund study update report (“Class 3 Study”) that he believes was done sometime in spring of 2024

12I will address each type of record separately.

Minutes

13Regarding the September 30, 2024, and January 27, 2025, minutes. PCC 110 submits that it did not initially provide these records to Mr. Slee because it could not locate them. However, on March 25, 2026, after locating them, (during these proceedings) the corporation provided these minutes to Mr. Slee. According to Ms. Guitar when FirstService Residential assumed management of PCC 110 in March 2025, there were issues with the transfer of records, and this contributed to the delay in locating all the requested minutes.

14These minutes were provided 10 months after the request and long past the statutory timelines set out in the Act. Consistent with other decisions of the Tribunal (see, for example: Wilson v. York Condominium Corporation No. 133, 2022 ONCAT 6; Maureen Moloney v. Durham Condominium Corporation No. 124, 2020 ONCAT 3) I find that this lengthy delay in the provision of these records is an effective refusal and I do not accept as a reasonable excuse, in this case, that these were lost during a management transition. The corporation is required to keep minutes and ensure they are available to be examined when requested. The obligation to keep records rests with the corporation and it cannot defer responsibility for keeping those minutes, or for mistakes when it cannot locate its minutes, to a management company. In other words, I find that the vague excuse of ‘management transition’ is not an excuse for a 10 month delay in providing minutes, which are records that have a special place and purpose in helping to ensure that the affairs and dealings of the corporation and its board of directors are transparent and accessible to unit owners. Such a delay, in this case, denied Mr. Slee the opportunity to know and understand how the board was managing the affairs of the corporation and the absence of a reasonable excuse for the delay – the delay in providing these minutes amounts to an effective refusal without reasonable excuse.

15Regarding the July 8, 2024, minutes, according to Mr. Slee, the July 29, 2024, board meeting minutes refer to a meeting on July 8, 2024, yet no minutes for this meeting were provided to him. PCC 110 submits that the July 8 meeting was not a board meeting, but a meeting between the board of directors and several unit owners concerning notices of liens that had been issued in error. According to PCC 110, the board held this meeting to explain what had happened to the affected owners. It submits there are no minutes for this meeting and PCC 110 is not required to have any minutes for this meeting. As evidence to support this claim, PCC 110 submitted an excerpt from the July 29, 2024, meeting minutes summarizing the details of this meeting. I find that excerpt does clearly show that the meeting held on July 8 was not a meeting of the board or a meeting for which there ought to be minutes. It was a meeting between the board and select unit owners about a matter relevant to them.

16Regarding the “digital meeting minutes”, Mr. Slee argues that the minutes of June 23, 2025, which reference “Ratifying Digital Approvals” suggest that the board of directors held meetings virtually to make these decisions. He submits there ought to be minutes for these meetings and that no such minutes were provided. According to PCC 110, there were no digital (i.e. virtual) board meetings held, rather there were some decisions made by email that were then ratified in the June 23, 2025, minutes.

17I am not persuaded by the evidence that any virtual board meetings took place for which the corporation ought to have produced and kept minutes. What the evidence shows is that some decisions were made via email and later ratified in a board meeting, and that there are minutes for that meeting which contains a record of those ratifications. I acknowledge that Mr. Slee questions whether making decisions by email is contrary to the Act, but this is primarily a governance question that is not presently within the Tribunal's jurisdiction to decide and is not relevant to his records request dispute. For the purposes of determining whether Mr. Slee has been provided with the records to which he is entitled, I find there are no minutes of “digital board meetings” to provide to Mr. Slee, and therefore these were not records that were refused.

Reserve Fund Study

18In the Request, Mr. Slee asked for a copy of the Reserve Fund Study for the period of May 2024 to the date of the request (June 2, 2024). This request was made because Mr. Slee was concerned about a special assessment and how PCC 110 had ended up in a position that required it to issue a special assessment to unit owners.

19While Mr. Slee has been provided with the Comprehensive Study dated May 2025 (revised June 2025). Mr. Slee submitted into evidence an invoice for a “Class 3 Reserve Fund Update report” that he argues means that there must be a Class 3 Study report that was done prior to the completion of Comprehensive Study. He submits that PCC 110 continues to refuse to provide him with the Class 3 Study.

20The invoice in evidence is from Building Sciences Inc. It is dated May 2024. It describes the services rendered as “Preparation of a Class 3 Reserve Fund Study Update report in accordance with our confirmation letter dated August 29, 2023 and attached terms of engagement”. There is also an email from a Building Sciences engineer, Nick Tassone, which appears to suggest that the document Mr. Slee seeks exists but was created in 2023 not 2024.

21Despite these two pieces of evidence, PCC 110 submitted that the only reserve fund study it has and/or was required to provide to Mr. Slee is the Comprehensive Study. According to PCC 110 this study was commissioned in 2024, but due to the board needing to sort out its financials it was not completed until 2025.

22I asked the corporation to clarify what document the May 2024 Building Sciences invoice related to, since it appeared to suggest a Class 3 Study had been commissioned. The corporation clarified that a draft of a Class 3 Reserve Fund study was completed in 2023, but it was never finalized. Building Sciences invoiced the corporation for it the following year (2024).

23Ms. Slee argues that the July 2024 meeting minutes prove that the board relied on this Class 3 Study to make decisions about the special assessment and thus it should be considered a record of the corporation to which he is entitled. The relevant part of those meeting minutes reads:

3. Owners Meetings: a) Reserve Fund Study and Funding: Action: Management will provide in writing to the Board their options for collecting special assessment fees.

The Board stated that they would like to schedule a meeting with the owners around August 15 to discuss the results of the reserve fund study, and then shortly afterward issue a notice of funding requirement. The Board requested Management's help developing a payment strategy and whether the Association should move forward with a special assessment or a loan...

24According to the corporation, this part of the minutes does not indicate they relied on the Class 3 Study to make any decisions but rather captures that it was the board’s intention to try to finalize the 2023 draft and approve a spending plan (to then be discussed with owners). However, this did not happen because the board discovered issues with some of the financial figures provided by the previous management company and this paused the reserve fund study update process. As a result, the engineer never actually prepared a notice of future funding plan for the board's approval and the Class 3 Study remained in draft.

25I accept that the Class 3 Study was only produced in draft and never finalized by the board. Additionally, based on the limited evidence before me, I am unable to conclude that this draft was relied upon to make any decisions about the special assessment that was eventually levied against unit owners.

26Without such evidence and given the document exists only in draft, I find Mr. Slee is not entitled to it. However, I also find that the excuse that the corporation provided to Mr. Slee in response to his request, was not reasonable. Had the corporation been transparent from the outset that the document existed but only in draft form, and therefore was not a record of the corporation, that would have been a reasonable excuse. Instead, the corporation chose to obfuscate. Had the corporation been more transparent with Mr. Slee, and in its submissions to this Tribunal, the confusion and dispute around this document might have been avoided.

27Finally, I note that Mr. Slee has not requested that the corporation pay a penalty because it would simply amount to increasing costs for him and his fellow owners and they are already facing the costs of a large special assessment. For this reason, I will not assess any penalty under s. 1.44 (1) 6 of the Act. However, had Mr. Slee requested a penalty, I would have been inclined to impose one in particular for offering no reasonable excuse for its refusal of the Class 3 Study.

Issue No. 4: Is either party entitled to costs?

28Mr. Slee has requested that the Tribunal order PCC 110 to pay his Tribunal fees in the amount of $200.

29Section 1.44 (1) 4 of the Act states that the Tribunal may make “an order directing another party to the proceeding to pay the costs of another party to the proceeding.”

30Section 1.44 (2) of the Act states that an order for costs “shall be determined ...in accordance with the rules of the Tribunal”.

31The cost-related rules of the Tribunal’s Rules of Practice relevant to this case are:

48.1 If a Case is not resolved by Settlement Agreement or Consent Order and a CAT Member makes a final Decision, the unsuccessful Party will be required to pay the successful Party’s CAT fees unless the CAT member decides otherwise.

32I find that Mr. Slee was partially successful in this case. While in some cases this will entitle a party to only a partial reimbursement of their Tribunal fees, in this case PCC 110 did not provide him with the records to which he was entitled within the timeframe required by the Act, as a result of which he initiated this application and was required to continue it in order to get the remainder of those records to which he was entitled. Therefore, I will order PCC 110 to pay Mr. Slee costs in the amount of $200 to reimburse him for his Tribunal fees.

C. ORDER

33The Tribunal Orders that:

1. Within 30 days of the date of this decision, PCC 110 shall pay Mr. Slee $200 for his Tribunal fees.

Nicole Aylwin

Vice-Chair, Condominium Authority Tribunal