The Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement is consulting on proposed changes to the Condo Act intended to strengthen protections for condo owners and improve transparency for purchasers.
The proposals address several key areas of condo ownership, governance and purchasing, including:
- Requiring developers to provide turnover documents electronically.
- Allowing condo corporations to conduct first-year performance audits at any point during the first year after registration.
- Limiting developers’ ability to use the corporation’s governing documents or agreements to prevent condo corporations from pursuing legal remedies for construction deficiencies.
- Requiring owners to share the purpose of their request when seeking records that contain emails and addresses of other owners.
- Expanding status certificates to include the status of legal actions, outstanding judgments, elevator outages in the previous 12 months and related financial implications.
- Requiring disclosure statements to include more information about pets, short-term rentals, easements, and municipal information for vacant land condos.
- Clarifying which changes to purchase agreements would be considered material and could allow purchasers to cancel an agreement.
- Clarifying owners’ and condo corporations’ rights to seek damages for false or misleading statements in disclosure documents.
The Ministry is also seeking feedback on two other topics:
- Whether cost of status certificates should stay the same.
- Whether to include a summary of information that may affect a purchaser’s enjoyment of their condo units or common areas along with preconstruction disclosure documents.
The changes would take effect on Dec. 31, 2026 if approved, together with the confirmed changes related to owner-requisitioned meeting requirements.
This is an important opportunity for owners, directors, condo managers, legal professionals and other members of Ontario’s condo sector to have their say.