CA/CS Ottawa General Partner v. Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 03, 2019 CanLII 59507

Assessment Review Board

Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE: June 25, 2019

FILE NO.: RR 2019M03

Assessed Person(s): CA/CS Ottawa General Partner

Appellant(s): CA/CS Ottawa General Partner

Respondent(s): Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”), Region 03

Respondent(s): City of Ottawa

Property Location(s): 111 Cooper Street

Municipality(ies): City of Ottawa

Roll Number(s): 0614-041-901-05400-0000

Appeal Number(s): 3269759 and 3289873

Taxation Year(s): 2017 and 2018

Legislative Authority: Rule 122 of the Assessment Review Board Rules of Practice and Procedure

Heard: May 10, 2019 by written submission

Parties	Counsel⁺/Representative	Submissions
Alignvest Management Corporation	George Cameron-Caluori	Moving Party
MPAC	Mohammad El Dali	Received
City of Ottawa	No one appeared	Not Received

DISPOSITION OF THE BOARD DELIVERED BY SCOTT McANSH

1Alignvest Management Corporation (“Alignvest”) seeks to have two appeals reinstated that were withdrawn in error. MPAC does not take a position on the application and the City of Ottawa did not file any material in the motion.

2Alignvest states that it had filed appeals of the assessment of the property at 111 Cooper Street in the City of Ottawa for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years. The records show that only CA/CS Ottawa General Partner (“Partner”) appealed those taxation years, and the records also show that to be the assessed person. I accept that Alignvest has some interest in the appeals, but it cannot be successful in this application because it was not a party to the withdrawn appeals.

3Alignvest argues that its agent had also acted for the previous tenant of the building, which was Partner. There were appeals for the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 taxation years before the Board. The agent was advised that there was an outstanding Statement of Issues for the 2015 and 2016 taxation year appeals and wrote to the Assessment Review Board (the “Board”) the same day requesting that the 2015 and 2016 appeals be withdrawn.

4Ten days later the agent sent an email to the Board requesting that the 2017 and 2018 appeals be withdrawn. The evidence is that this was due to a miscommunication amongst staff at the agency. One staff member had re-sent the request to withdraw the 2015 and 2016 appeals of the assessment of the property to another staff member. The receiving staff had already sent in the request to the Board so interpreted the request as a request to withdraw the 2017 and 2018 appeals. Ailgnvest argues that was in error.

Reinstatement

5Rule 122 of the Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure (the “Rules”) sets out the circumstances in which an appeal will be reinstated. The relevant clause is 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.”

6That clause was summarized in Winners Merchants International LP v Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 13, 2018 CanLII 78260 (ON ARB) (“Winners”), at paragraph 6:

There are three essential components to the Rule. 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 that the appeal was withdrawn in error. All three conditions must be met before an appeal will be reinstated.

Party

7Both Alignvest and MPAC misstate who the party is in this application. Both state that the question is if the agent was a party to the withdrawn appeals. Agents are not parties to appeals, so the agent was not a party to the withdrawn appeals. Neither was Alignvest. Nothing in the materials indicates that any entity other than Partner was the appellant or assessed person for these appeals. Partner has not been involved in this application in any way.

8Alignvest was not a party to the withdrawn appeals and is the applicant here. The first requirement of Rule 122(a) is therefore not met.

Timing

9The second requirement is that the application be brought within 30 days of the appeal being withdrawn. Alignvest requested that the Board withdraw the appeals on January 28, 2019. It sent a request to reinstate the next day, on January 29, 2019, and made a formal request for reinstatement pursuant to Rule 122 a week later, on February 6, 2019.

10That is a timely application.

Error

11The final requirement for reinstatement is that the appeals were withdrawn in error. In Winners, at paragraph 19, the Board held that the “errors in Rule 122(a) must be good faith errors.”

12Alignvest argues that the error was due to a misunderstanding between employees of the agent it has retained for these appeals. The evidence before me supports that assertion. Alignvest has set out a clear explanation of how the error occurred and there is no aspect of bad faith in the conduct described. I am satisfied that the error here is appropriate one for reinstatement.

CONCLUSION

13Alignvest meets only two of the requirements set out in Rule 122(a) to have these appeals reinstated. It requested this reinstatement in a timely way and the error was made in good faith. However, there are three requirements set out in Rule 122(a), and all three must be met before an appeal will be reinstated. Alignvest was not a party to the withdrawn appeals. Its application is denied.