1665637 Ontario Ltd. v. Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, 2019 CanLII 18791

Assessment Review Board

Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE: March 06, 2019

FILE NO.: RR 2019M02

Assessed Person(s): 1665637Ontario Ltd.

Appellant(s): CBRE Limited

Respondent(s): Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”) Region 09

Respondent(s): City of Toronto

Property Location(s): 1011 Gerrard Street

Municipality(ies): City of Toronto

Roll Number(s): 1904-082-220-02350-0000

Appeal Number(s): 3320573

Taxation Year(s): 2018

Legislative Authority: Rule 122 of the Assessment Review Board’s Rues of Practice and Procedure

Request for: Reinstatement of appeal 3320573

Heard: By written submission

Parties	Representative	Submissions
1665637 Ontario Ltd.	Angelo Walters	Requester
MPAC	No one appeared	Not Received
City of Toronto	No one appeared	Not Received

DECISION DELIVERED BY SCOTT McANSH AND ORDER OF THE BOARD

11665637 Ontario Ltd. (the “Company”) requests that this Assessment Review Board (this “Board”) reinstate appeal 3320573 by way of a request for reinstatement pursuant to Rule 122 of the Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure (the “Rules”). This request for reinstatement was filed with the Board on January 10, 2019.

2The Board received a request to withdraw the appeal from the Company on January 3, 2019 and the Board processed the appeal as withdrawn on January 24, 2019. The Company says that the appeal was withdrawn in error.

3For the reasons that follow, the Company’s request to reinstate the appeal is granted. Appeal 3320573 is reinstated.

The Reinstatement Rule

4Rule 122 sets out the circumstances in which the Board will reinstate appeals that were withdrawn. The relevant provision of the Rule for this application is in clause 122(a), which states, in relevant part, that “a party to a former proceeding may seek an order… to reinstate an appeal by filing an affidavit with the Board… no more than 30 days after the appeal was… withdrawn… setting out that… the appeal was withdrawn… in error.”

5There are three essential components to Rule 122(a). First, it is only open to parties to the appeal that was withdrawn. Secondly, the order must be sought within 30 days after the appeal was dismissed or withdrawn. Finally, the Board must be satisfied, based on the evidence in the applicant’s affidavit, that the appeal was withdrawn in error. All three conditions must be met before an appeal will be reinstated. The Company’s application meets all three requirements.

Party

6The Company was the appellant in the withdrawn appeal. The first condition of Rule 122(a) is therefore met.

Timely Application

7The Company sent its request to withdraw the appeal on January 3, 2019 and requested that it be reinstated one week later, on January 10, 2019. That is a timely application, satisfying the second condition of Rule 122(a).

Withdrawn in Error

8The final requirement of Rule 122(a) is that the appeal was withdrawn in error. The Company’s evidence is that there were two assessments issued against the property for the 2018 taxation year. An initial assessment was issued, pursuant to section 14 of the Assessment Act, R.S.O. 1990, c A.31 (the “Act”). MPAC later issued a corrected assessment, pursuant to section 32 of the Act, which effectively replaced the original assessment. The Company appealed both assessments to the Board.

9The Company had reached a negotiated settlement of the assessment for the 2018 taxation year with MPAC. That would be applied to the corrected assessment and the appeal of the original assessment was to be withdrawn. The Company mistakenly withdrew the corrected assessment. It says that it cannot now implement its agreement with MPAC, because the remaining appeal concerns an assessment that has been replaced. The Company seeks to have this appeal, of the corrected assessment, reinstated and will withdraw its other 2018 appeal once this appeal is resolved.

10This Board held, in Winners Merchants International LP v Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 13, 2018 CanLII 78260 (ON ARB), at paragraph 19, that the “errors in Rule 122(a) must be good faith errors.” I accept that the Company made a good faith error here. It took a proactive step of withdrawing one of its two 2018 appeals before finalizing its settlement agreement with MPAC. I accept that it would not have intentionally withdrawn the wrong appeal. The error here falls with the class of errors covered by Rule 122(a).

CONCLUSION

11The Company was a party to the withdrawn appeal, filed this application in a timely way, and the error it made was a good faith error. It therefore meets the requirements of Rule 122(a). Appeal 3320573 is reinstated.