Governance

February 10, 2024 Published by Manitoba Chapter - By Alan Forbes

Condo Conversation Corner - February 2024

From the CCI Manitoba Winter 2024 Condominium News and Views Magazine

• Should a condo corporation install E-vehicle chargers?
• Who is the real problem?
• What all condo directors should know
• What all real-estate agents should know

If you want to contribute to the discussion, you can make a submission via our website or send us an email.

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Disclaimer

CCI Manitoba is unable to provide specific legal advice. We recommend that you speak to a lawyer regarding the challenges or problems you may be experiencing. For your information, a list of lawyers who are Professional Members of the Manitoba Chapter of the Canadian Condominium Institute is available on our website.

Note that frequent references are made to Manitoba’s Condominium Act and regulations.

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Out with the old and in with the new

This the first newsletter overseen by the newly elected Communications Committee chair, Duane Rohne. Duane was first elected to the CCI Board in 2020 and has served on our membership, Advocacy, and Nominating committees, and is the former chair of the Membership committee. Please welcome Duane in his new role with CCI. You can email Duane about inquiries related to the newsletter and the Communication Committee at cci.mb.news@gmail.com.

The outgoing chair, Alan Forbes, joined the Newsletter Committee in the fall of 2018 as a non-board member after attending CCI’s AGM that year. In 2019 he was elected as a director of CCI and in the spring of 2020 he took on the role of chair for the Newsletter Committee. In the fall of 2021, the Communication Committee was merged with the Newsletter Committee and Alan has been the chair until now. Alan isn’t going too far, as he will continue on the committee for the foreseeable future to ensure a smooth transition and to maintain the high quality of our publication.

Should a condo corporation install E-vehicle chargers?

This is a hot topic and there are lots of seminars, articles and contractors suggesting condo corporations should provide, or at least facilitate, charging capability for their unit owners.

First the basics. In order of increasing cost of installation, here are the three levels of charging capability, with approximate charging times from an empty battery:

1. Slow charger - standard 120V outlet with full charge time of a day or two
2. Fast charger - 240V outlet (as used for clothes dryer or stove) with full charge time of about eight hours
3. Rapid charger - high-power direct current with full charge in less than an hour.

Next, consider your electrical infrastructure. Do all unit owners have access to a block heater outlet? Since block heaters are comparable loads to level 1 chargers, you may be good to go - (but with your corporation's electrician first). Does your property’s transformer have the capacity to add level 2 charging capability or level 3? If not, additional expenses will be incurred. Also, you need to know if your connection to the nearest electric utility transformer has the capacity? If not, there are more cost and logistics to consider.

Consider a thought experiment to determine the need for fast or rapid charging in your condo corporation. How many kilometres does the average person drive in a year? One source of data suggests the average Manitoban drives about 15,000 kilometres a year. Assuming it is mostly city driving with an average speed of 50 kilometres an hour, the driver is in motion for about 300 hours annually, or about six hours a week. That means the vehicle is parked for 162 hours a week on average. So is there a need for a fast or rapid charger at home?

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are on the horizon, so should you be providing hydrogen fuelling stations on your property? They are even more rare than electric chargers. At one seminar I attended, one of the panelists posed this question: If your property does not currently provide gasoline pump service for your unit owners, why should you provide fast charging?

So, back to the original question: Should a condo corporation install E-vehicle chargers? The default answer is probably no, but level 1 charging is an option. Leave it to the marketplace to provide fast or rapid chargers and hydrogen refuelling stations.

Who is the real problem?

For most of the complaints we receive, there are two recurring causes — lack of communication and ignorance, both of which can be easily addressed in theory but with difficulty in practice. The difficulty relates to people having to do something rather than just complaining that “somebody should do something.”

The lack of communication can be solved relatively easily but it takes effort from both the unit owners and the directors. The overall objective for all condo corporations should be to establish and sustain an effective two-way communication channel between directors and unit owners. A number of simple methods are described below to improve communication, but take ongoing effort to sustain.

• Condo directors can publish a quarterly newsletter, with updates on projects, upcoming maintenance, seasonal items, safety and security reminders and, of course whom unit owners should contact and how.
• If there is a common room, the board could hold a town hall meeting periodically to identify issues of concern and to provide updates. 
• The board could make use of one of the freely available apps to survey the unit owners for short and long-term strategic planning purposes and for simple things such as colour choices for carpets, paint or furnishings in the common areas.

While it’s easy in principle to implement some of the above, it can be difficult in practice. First of all, somebody has to want to address the communication problem and be willing to provide the effort. This somebody should probably be one or more of the directors. And the effort must be sustained. Don’t start doing a newsletter, then stop after a few have been published. And don’t survey the unit owners unless you intend to do something with the feedback. That said, there is an old adage that 80 per cent of the work is done by 20 per cent of the people. Consider what that means with a board of five directors. Therefore, more unit owners must get involved by offering to help.

You probably noticed that the improvements mentioned rely on the directors. So what about the unit owners? Well, they can start by reading the provided materials and providing useful feedback. They can come prepared to the AGM and ask questions. They can volunteer for committees and to improve the life at the condo corporation. Recall that the objective is to achieve an effective two- way communication channel, which requires effort from both directors and unit owners.

Ignorance

Ignorance can also be easily solved in theory but not in practice. Many unit owners (most? all?) have never bothered to read their condo corporation’s declaration, bylaws or rules. Even fewer have ever looked up something on the provincial website, which is an easyto-use resource of all things relating to the Condo Act and regulation. Spend a few hours over the next month and educate yourself on the rules of your corporation, the roles and responsibilities of unit owners, directors and property managers.

One point in particular pertains to property managers and their role. While they can provide advice to the board, their role is to take direction from the board. If you don’t like something the property manager is doing or not doing, it is probably an issue you should take back to the board. Directors also need to address their own ignorance. They need to be very familiar with their condo corporation’s declaration, bylaws and rules, since it is they who have to follow the defined governance and enforce the rules. The next step would be to take advantage of CCI’s online director course that can be completed in less than four hours at your own pace. While there is a cost for the course, most boards will reimburse that cost.

Other serious matters

Other causes of problems and complaints include unethical behaviour, harassment, gossip, vindictiveness and so on. Unfortunately, there are no condo police and few options besides engaging a lawyer. Perhaps you can help out by contacting your MLA and pointing out the lack of a condo regulatory authority with enforcement powers and a low cost tribunal option to resolve disputes.

What all condo directors should know

We are often asked what a newly elected condo directors should do to improve their knowledge. There are numerous FREE resources available for directors to learn on their own.

1. Read your corporation's declaration, which will describe occupation and use restrictions, division of maintenance responsibilities between unit owners and the corporation, insurance claims and responsibilities for repair, plus many other things directors must enforce or use as guidance in their duties.
2. Read your corporation's bylaws. One of the bylaws must describe the governance requirements, such as number of directors, notice and quorum requirements for meetings, elections and the like. A second bylaw may describe a standard unit, with implications for maintenance and repair responsibilities and implications for insurance policies, both for the corporation policy and for the unit owner policy.
3. Read the rules of your corporation. Directors are required to enforce these rules.
4. Read the policies of your corporation, if they exist. They document guidance and standard practice for governance.
5. Take advantage of the monthly CCI education events, which are FREE to members. Besides learning about a specific topic each month, you will meet other condo directors, unit owners and industry professionals and learn from discussions with them.
6. Search through CCI’s newsletter archive, which is FREE to members and contain more than a decade’s worth of articles that should be of interest to a condo director.
7. Download and read the CCI Condo Guidebook, which is FREE to members.
8. Watch one of more of the recordings from past CCI education events, which are FREE to members.
9. Poke around the Manitoba government’s website to become familiar with the Condo Act and associated regulations. As time goes on, astute directors review numerous sections in their normal governance duties.

Besides these FREE options, enrol in the CCI director course. While there is a $75 fee for the course, most condo boards will reimburse this cost upon completion. The course is self-paced and can be easily completed in less than four hours.

What all real-estate agents should know

In the last few months, some property managers have reported inquiries from real-estate agents involved in a condo purchase asking: “What condo documents should I order?” or “What forms need to be filled out?”

We’re not sure why there are more of such queries, but it could just be that more agents who lack condo experience are getting involved in buying and selling condos. Whatever the case, there are at least three options for agents to get their questions answered.

1. Ask the property manager — no, don’t do this! Even though the property manager probably knows the answer, most are already busy enough managing their properties and clients. So unless you’re willing to share some of your sales commission, don’t pick this option.
2. Consult the provincial website for condos and look for the Condominium Forms link under Other Resources. Pay particular attention to Form 6a/6b, which can be used as a checklist. Consider this as your first step to properly educating yourself about condos.
3. Join CCI to access our knowledge base and to get listed in our professional directory to promote your business. Once a member, you can attend education sessions for FREE, take the introductory CCI course at a special rate and access recordings of past education sessions. In particular pay attention to two recordings from 2021, which will probably answer all of your questions.
   1. “One Team One Mission - Realtors, Property Managers & Owners”
   2. “Solving The Mystery On Condo Docs”

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Alan Forbes is a director of CCI Manitoba and its vice-president. He was the chair of the Communications Committee for the past few years and has served on the Government Relations and Advocacy Committee. He currently serves on the Membership Committee, the Education Committee and the Communications Committee.