A court application by unit owners in an Isabella Street building want a judge to appoint an independent administrator to take over the board.
Unit owners in a Glebe condominium have asked a judge to appoint an independent administrator to take over its board, which they say is beset by political unrest, turmoil, hostility and mistrust.
According to documents filed as part of the court application, the problem with the condo board stems from its unusual structure.
Ottawa-Carleton Standard Condominium Corporation No. 758 is made up of 87 units in an Isabella Street building connected by a walkway to Villagia in the Glebe, a retirement residence.
Seventy of the condo units are owned and rented out by a company, OML Residences Limited, which also has an ownership stake in Villagia. The other 17 units are privately held.
The private owners contend the condominium corporation is being operated as if it was an “offshoot” of the neighbouring retirement home. “The affairs of the retirement residence have been intertwined with those of the condominium corporation,” the court application alleges.
Ron Prefasi, and his wife, Suzanne, both former teachers, are two of the private condominium owners behind the court case. They’re both condo board members.
Prefasi contends the company, through its control of the condo board, has suppressed the value of the privately-owned condos by perpetuating an unfair system of fees.
That system means the Prefasis pay more than $3,000 a month in fees — more than $36,000 a year.
“This is just wrong,” Ron Prefasi, 76, says when asked why he’s taken the issue to court. “I guess we were radicals in our younger days, Suzanne and I, and we’re not afraid of a fight.”
The Evening Citizen
The court application contends the condominium corporation is in a state of crisis and requires the appointment of both an administrator and an inspector to manage its affairs and to ensure provincial rules related to financial management and record keeping are being followed.
Given the condo’s dysfunction, the applicants argue, the appointment of two outside officials is “the only viable option to restore its affairs and operations to a sense of normalcy.”
The allegations contained in the court documents have not been proven in court, and a date for a hearing on the application has not been set.
Jean-François Dodin, a condo board member who represents OML Residences, said the company was in the process of preparing a written response to the allegations, which would be filed in court.
“We do wish to clarify, though, that the current application is brought by two owners whose main complaint relates to a discrete issue over how certain fees are billed,” he said. “We do not agree that owners have been treated unfairly or that there are issues generally regarding the management or affairs of the building.”
According to Prefasi, the heart of the problem comes down to the way in which fees are managed at the condominium.
The condominium corporation has a shared-facilities agreement with Villagia. Private condo owners at 100 Isabella pay a monthly fee, known as an allocated cost contribution (ACC) fee, to cover the cost of 10 Villagia meals per month, light housekeeping, laundry services and some access to Villagia’s activities and nursing services.
The condo units at 100 Isabella owned by OML Residences, which also owns Villagia, do not pay this fee, the court documents allege.
In addition, the private condo owners pay a monthly shared-facilities fee for the maintenance and repair of Villagia facilities used by condo owners. Prefasi says he has asked for a breakdown of how that fee is calculated, but has never received one.
In a sworn affidavit, Prefasi said he paid $1,774.40 a month for the ACC fee and $1,310.03 a month for common expenses, including the shared-facilities fee. Those fees do not include property taxes.
Prefasi admits he knew about the fees when he bought his unit three years ago. But in his affidavit Prefasi says he only subsequently discovered that the condo units owned by OML Residences and its predecessor were not paying either the ACC or the shared-facilities fees.
The system, he contends, allowed Villagia’s former owner to accumulate condo units at 100 Isabella at discounted prices since the private units were unattractive to buyers because of the high monthly fees attached to them.
Many of the elderly owners or their surviving family members, Prefasi says, only find out what has been going on when they try to sell their units.
“(The former owner) and now OML Residences are artificially keeping the market price of our units lower,” Prefasi alleges in his affidavit, “which allows them to purchase the units when the elderly residents pass away. In my opinion, this equates to elder abuse.”
The company traditionally controls three seats on the condo corporation’s board of directors, but one of its seats is now vacant. The private owners control two seats on the board, which is now deadlocked.
“The previous board members just sort of sat there and went along with everything,” Prefasi said. “We won’t do that.”
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