For Waverton, might I suggest a compromise to avoid the legal arguments.
The OC could resolve to waterproof every unit’s balcony and then lay identical tiles on each balcony, in which case they would be common property, and every owner is effectively paying for their own tiles, and the appearance is consistent.
The only added cost is removing old tiles from the “some” balconies which have already been tiled, which would be a minor part of the total cost, and could be paid by the OC.
But, I have to ask, if it’s raining on everyone’s balcony, does it really matter if the lower ones get a little more water than the upper ones? Is there a problem when it’s not raining?
For everyone else, let me continue the generic debate.
JimmyT said
No by-law, no renovations: it’s really that simple.
I don’t think it is that simple. If an owner asks for approval, that principle can be applied. The trouble these days is that many owners undertake additions/alterations (or renovations) without seeking approval. Either through ignorance, or more often through refusal to concede that there actually is a higher authority than themselves, or because of the “forgiveness is easier to get than permission” principle. There are various classes of such renovations.
1) The silent renovations that nobody knows about, such as extending the one and only TV outlet to every room by laying cable under the carpet, and then the new owner/tenant complains to the SM that one of their “extra” outlets doesn’t work, and the SM gets it fixed at OC expense. Even laying tiles on balconies can come into this category if the edge tiles are cut off-site.
2) The one-day renovations. The EC members go off to work, and when they get home they notice a new split-system air-conditioner compressor bolted down on someone’s balcony. It’s in exactly the place the OC would have specified if they’d been asked. What’s the chance of the OC getting that owner to pay for drafting and registering a retrospective SBL which is only going to make him responsible for ongoing maintenance. And what’s the chance that the CTTT would deny an owner his creature comforts and order it removed when the OC admits it’s in the right place but it’s just a “matter of principle”.
3) The audible long-running renovations, such as bathroom and kitchen renovations, which were notified and approved, but the scope gets “extended”. The owner forgetfully leaves his door open one day, and an EC member notices that a floating wooden floor is being installed as well. The EC member tells the owner that approval wasn’t granted for that, and is told to “rack off”. There are no “stop work” orders available, and the CTTT probably wouldn’t order it removed until it proves “too noisy”.
What I was trying to suggest was that instead of having different processes for approved renovations and the myriad of unapproved renovations, one single process of never ever approving additions/alterations might work if you had just one By-Law that unapproved renovations were the responsibility of the (current) owner, as long as the OC also had plans or photos of the lots “as originally built”. That would not make renovations “verboten”.
@JimmyT also said:
That’s why when you are selling an apartment these days you will probably be asked to sign a waiver saying you have not undertaken any unapproved changes to common property
I’m not a lawyer either, but I doubt that an OC could ever be held liable for a waiver (contract) between a vendor and a purchaser when the OC was not a party to the contract.
If there is any recourse, it would be by purchaser against vendor.
Which raises the question of which legal concept takes precedence: a waiver signed in “good faith” by an ignorant person, or “ignorance of the law is no excuse”.
Now if there was a Certificate of Unapproved Modifications required from the OC (after inspection) to be attached to every contract of sale, things might be different.
@JimmyT also also said:
Only until the lot owner sold, and then they would become the Owners Corp’s responsibility (and they would have had no control over the work that had been done).
Using the same reasoning as above, that the OC was not a party to the contract, how can what was an “unapproved modification to CP” suddenly become common property? A contract of sale, to which the OC was not a party, cannot impose a benefit or a liability on a third party, the OC.