2669590 Ontario Inc. v. Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 29, 2020 CanLII 80897

Assessment Review Board / Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE: October 21, 2020 FILE NO.: DM 2020M21

Assessed Person(s): 2669590 Ontario Inc. Appellant(s): 2669590 Ontario Inc. Respondent(s): Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 29 Respondent(s): The City of Temiskaming Shores

Property Location(s): 685 View Street Municipality(ies): The City of Temiskaming Shores Roll Number(s): 5418-030-007-22901-0000 Taxation Year(s): 2019 Hearing Event No.: 735684

Legislative Authority: Rule 26(b) of the Assessment Review Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure

Parties	Counsel*/Representative
2669590 Ontario Inc.	Yannick J. Benoit*
Municipal Property Assessment Corporation	Charmaine Siddle
The City of Temiskaming Shores	Submissions not received

REQUEST FOR: Late appeal(s) HEARD: September 29, 2020 in writing ADJUDICATOR(S): Jean-Paul Pilon, Member

MOTION DECISION

OVERVIEW

12669590 Ontario Inc. (the “Moving Party”) is the owner of 685 View Street in Temiskaming Shores (the “Subject Property”) and brought this motion to file a late appeal for the 2019 taxation year. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”) opposed the motion and the City of Temiskaming Shores filed no submissions on the motion.

2This motion was brought pursuant to Rule 26(b) of the Assessment Review Board’s (the “Board”) Rules of Practice and Procedure (the “Rules”) which provides that:

(T)he Board may accept an appeal received after the time set out in the Assessment Act R.S.O. 1990, c. A.31 (the “Act”) if the appellant satisfies the Board, by way of affidavit evidence that…the appellant is a person entitled receive a notice of assessment who did not receive notice and filed the appeal with the Board within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment or classification that is the subject of the appeal.

3The Moving Party was entitled to notice of the assessment and did not receive the notice. Within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment, the Moving Party’s president erroneously filed a request for reconsideration of the assessment (“RfR”) instead of a request to extend time to file an appeal pursuant to Rule 26(b).

Result

4The motion is granted.

Background

5The Moving Party relied on the affidavit of Melvin Peddie, president of the Moving Party which owns the Subject Property, sworn on March 30, 2020. In his affidavit, Mr. Peddie said that he was the party entitled to receive a notice of assessment.

6He wrote that the Moving Party purchased the Subject Property on December 14, 2018 and that he did not receive a notice of assessment for the 2019 taxation year. He said that he became aware of the assessed value of the Subject Property when he received a tax bill from the City of Temiskaming Shores on June 5, 2019. The deadline to file an appeal for that taxation year was March 15, 2019.

7On June 20, 2019, within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment, Mr. Peddie submitted an RfR to the Board. Board staff replied by email on July 10, 2019 saying that the Board did not have the authority to extend the date to file an RfR for properties in the same tax class as the Subject Property. Instead, it set out Rule 26(b) and wrote that “if you can provide an explanation that meets the criteria set out above, please submit a notarized affidavit directed to the Chair, at which time your request will be considered.”

8Mr. Peddie’s submitted his affidavit to the Board on April 5, 2020.

9In this motion, MPAC argued that the Moving Party had not met the third requirement of Rule 26(b) because the Moving Party did not file an appeal with the Board within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment.

ANALYSIS

Entitled to Receive Notice

10The first part of Rule 26(b) requires a determination as to whether the Moving Party was a person entitled to receive a notice of assessment.

11The corporate Moving Party was entitled to receive notice because it was the owner of the property. Mr. Peddie, as president of the Moving Party, would also have been entitled to receive notice on the corporate Moving Party’s behalf. MPAC did not contest that the Moving Party met the first requirement of Rule 26(b).

12The Moving Party met the first requirement of Rule 26(b).

Did Not Receive Notice

13The second part of Rule 26(b) requires a determination that the Moving Party who is entitled to receive notice did not receive notice.

14This was also not contested by MPAC, who acknowledged that notice of the assessment was sent to the previous owner of the Subject Property, not the Moving Party or Mr. Peddie.

15The Moving Party met the second requirement of Rule 26(b).

Filed Within 30 Days

16The third part of Rule 26(b) requires a determination that the Moving Party filed an appeal within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment.

17It was not contested that the Moving Party did not file an appeal within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment on June 5, 2019 when Mr. Peddie received the tax bill. Instead, but within that 30-day period on June 20, 2019, Mr. Peddie filed a request to extend time to file an RfR.

18A similar situation was before the Board in 2356746 Ontario Inc. v. Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 13, 2019 CanLII 114731 (ON ARB) (“2356746”). In that case, the director of the corporate moving party also met the first two requirements of Rule 26(b). That person received a tax bill on June 30, 2019, the day they became aware of the assessment, communicated with the Board on July 23, 2019, and filed an RfR the next day.

19As it did in this case, the Board in 2356746 wrote to the moving party indicating that the RfR was being treated as a request for late appeal. At para. 27 of that decision, the Board determined that there was:

…a sufficient nexus between the statement that the Moving party wants a reconsideration of the assessment in the RfR and the head of appeal in the Act that the assessment is incorrect for the RfR to be consider an ‘appeal’ pursuant to Rule 26(b) in these circumstances.

It went on to say that “such an interpretation of Rule 26(b) would be consistent with Rule 4, which provides that the Rules are to be interpreted liberally and is the fair result in the circumstances.”

20In its submission in this motion, the Moving Party cited 347428 Ontario Ltd. v. Municipal Property Assessment Corp., Region No. 27, [2004] O.A.R.B.D. No. 113 which held at para. 20, that a good reason to extend time for a late filing ‘should be determined by the principles of fairness, lack of prejudice to the other parties and the need for certainty in final decisions.’” While those principles obviously remain important ones, that decision was not particularly useful in this context because it considered a different question as well as a very different previous version of the Board’s rules which provided discretion that was not available in this instance.

21As indicated above, however, an interpretation of Rule 26(b) granting the motion would be consistent with Rule 4. This is because it would unfair to deny the Moving Party relief when it clearly intended to challenge the assessment and met all of the requirements of Rule 26(b) other than it submitted the wrong form.

ORDER

22The Board orders that 2669590 Ontario Inc.’s motion to extend time to file an appeal for the 2019 taxation year is granted.