Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Application of Limitation Periods to Breaches of Bylaws

My experience with enforcing against some breaches of bylaws on behalf of condominium corporations is that the Court may consider a breach of a bylaw to be a recurring breach.  As such the Court does not prohibit the enforcement as a consequence of the passage of time in excess of that provided for by the Limitations Act (Alberta).  That is, until the breach is rectified it is considered to be a fresh breach daily.  A recent case out of the Supreme Court of Ontario Waterloo North Condominium Corp v. Silacshi, 2012 ONSC 5403 has recently affirmed this principal.  The Honourable Justice D.A. Broad stated:

"[16] As pointed out by Quigley, J. in Toronto Common Element Condominium Corporation No. 1508 v. Stasyna, 2012 ONSC 1504 at para. 40, the proposition that questions of enforcement and compliance under the Condominium Act may be subject to the application of a limitation period is well recognized in the case law. However, as further pointed out by Quigley, J. in Stasyna at para. 41, the cases that support that proposition do not relate to actions commenced to enforce compliance with the Act itself, but rather with internal governance documents. Where there is a breach of the statute itself, such as here, the Limitation Act, 2002 can have no application."
This rationale places some legal colour to the rationalization of recurrence of the breach.