Condominium Changes 2019: Condominium Act Regulations: Meetings and Voting: Voting by Co-Owners

Anyone engaged in service on a condominium board has heard the news, change is coming. Just before Christmas, Service Alberta released 91 pages of new regulations that will impact your role as a board member, how your board operates and how our employees support you. The regulatory changes will usher in a sweeping set of new requirements that touch on everything from meeting agenda, to insurance, to notices, voting and much, much more.

Our team has already been working to analyze and plan for how these changes will impact your community. As that process continues, we will be providing you with a series of articles that focus on each of the major changes, so you can get up to speed. This article is the fourth of a series that will focus on the regulatory requirements that will come into effect on July 1, 2019.

Voting by Co-Owners

Voting by co-owners, by the corporation, and using electronic voting are other issues addressed by the Condo Act regulations. The regulations spell out how co-owners may vote based on the type of ownership they share regarding the unit if the ownership is as joint tenants or tenants in common.

Background on Tenancy

A tenancy in common is a form of ownership where two or more people have ownership of a unit. In the case of a tenancy in common the ownership of the unit is severable, that is each owner has a distinct ownership interest and no rights of survivorship. In the event of the death of a common tenant, the ownership of the share of the unit goes to the estate of the deceased rather than the remaining tenants. Tenancy in common is a default ownership law.

Joint tenancy is distinguished by owners holding title with rights of survivorship. This typically means the ownership between the joint tenants is not severable and in the event of a joint tenant’s death, their ownership share automatically passes to the remaining tenant. To obtain a joint tenancy, it must be specified at time of transfer of property.

Voting by Co-owners:

For purposes of voting, the regulations specify how to handle voting by both tenants in common and joint tenants.

If a unit is owned by two or more people as tenants in common a single owner attending the meeting may case a vote for the entire share of the unit. In the event that two or more tenants in common attend the meeting (and now proxies have been issued for the unit), the unit’s vote and associated unit factor votes are divided among the co-owners in proportion to each co-owner’s ownership share.

If a unit is owned by 2 or more persons as joint tenants, if only one co-owner attends a meeting, casts a vote, or gives a proxy to a person other than a joint tenant in the unit, that co-owners vote represents the entire unit and all associated unit factors.  In the event that two joint tenants attend a meeting to cast a vote, or give a proxy, then each co-owner votes and associated unit factor votes are divided among the unit co-owners on the basis of their respective ownership shares in the unit. If there are any remaining unit factor votes, then the first person listed on the unit’s certificate has the right to cast the remaining vote factors.

The challenge for boards is that the corporation is typically not privy to the form of ownership a specific unit may be held under. The regulations also don’t specify how the board should obtain this information. This means the board has several options to obtain this data. They could contact residents to have them self-report, they could engage their managing agent to search title records or explore other options.  It is critical for the board to have this information as it will impact how votes are taken and calculated. If your board, manager and legal counsel have not yet discussed how to approach this challenge, now is the time.