cassius
Active Member
I'm in desperate need of advice on what to do about the situation I'm in.. Please bare with me.
My brother and I own a condo townhouse in Pickering. Late last week we received a letter from our lawyer stating that our condo has gone into receivership. Surprised by this, we've obviously looked into it. In a letter to our lawyer from our condo board, we were told that they initiated receivership in March 2010 for payments not made that month. We checked our bank records and sure enough we did pay that month. After we pushed the lawyers of the condo board for more details, they told us that it wasn't actually March 2010 that we missed the payment, even though they initially said it was. As it turns out, there was a missed condo payment ($240) in May 2008. Of course neither myself nor my brother were even aware that we had missed a payment. We're not sure why they didn't retry the transaction at a later date. On top of this, the condo corp put a stop payment on all our automated payments starting in August 2010. We don't know why they did that, but my guess is that it took from March 2010 to August 2010 for the receivership to go through...
Anyways, when our lawyer contacted us about this we were told that we have until December 29th 2010 to pay the outstanding condo fees or our tenants will be locked out and the place will go up for sale that day. As a result, we have the $240 (now $310 incl interst), $1300 condo fees (August to December) and they've hit us with another $5000+ in lawyer's fees for the condo corporation. So we'll need to pay out about $6300 by December 29th or we're screwed.
We were never informed about any of this, though apparently the condo corp did send notice to our house in Pickering. We're guessing the tenant just tossed out the notices unopened.
I guess my questions are:
1. Is this legal for them to do?
2. Does anyone know enough about laws in Ontario about this to point me in the right direction? We certainly can't afford to pay for our own lawyer now plus the $6300.
3. Any other thoughts on this situation?
I realize ultimately we did miss that one payment of $240 in May 2008, but we're wondering why (since we pay by PAP) they didn't retry the transaction and how a $240 bill can end up turning into $240+$5000 in lawyer fees.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
My brother and I own a condo townhouse in Pickering. Late last week we received a letter from our lawyer stating that our condo has gone into receivership. Surprised by this, we've obviously looked into it. In a letter to our lawyer from our condo board, we were told that they initiated receivership in March 2010 for payments not made that month. We checked our bank records and sure enough we did pay that month. After we pushed the lawyers of the condo board for more details, they told us that it wasn't actually March 2010 that we missed the payment, even though they initially said it was. As it turns out, there was a missed condo payment ($240) in May 2008. Of course neither myself nor my brother were even aware that we had missed a payment. We're not sure why they didn't retry the transaction at a later date. On top of this, the condo corp put a stop payment on all our automated payments starting in August 2010. We don't know why they did that, but my guess is that it took from March 2010 to August 2010 for the receivership to go through...
Anyways, when our lawyer contacted us about this we were told that we have until December 29th 2010 to pay the outstanding condo fees or our tenants will be locked out and the place will go up for sale that day. As a result, we have the $240 (now $310 incl interst), $1300 condo fees (August to December) and they've hit us with another $5000+ in lawyer's fees for the condo corporation. So we'll need to pay out about $6300 by December 29th or we're screwed.
We were never informed about any of this, though apparently the condo corp did send notice to our house in Pickering. We're guessing the tenant just tossed out the notices unopened.
I guess my questions are:
1. Is this legal for them to do?
2. Does anyone know enough about laws in Ontario about this to point me in the right direction? We certainly can't afford to pay for our own lawyer now plus the $6300.
3. Any other thoughts on this situation?
I realize ultimately we did miss that one payment of $240 in May 2008, but we're wondering why (since we pay by PAP) they didn't retry the transaction and how a $240 bill can end up turning into $240+$5000 in lawyer fees.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!