Condo buyers in Toronto win judgment in faulty status certificate case

A $75,000 court judgment against a condominium corporation over “fraudulent” documents highlights the risks of not examining closely the mandatory cost disclosures most condo sales require.

Experts say the ruling in Gonzales v. York Condominium Corporation No. 242 has “gone viral” in the condo law community, not least because of the scorching language from Justice Robert Centa who states: “The condominium corporation and its agents engaged in a shocking abuse of trust and power.” The ruling centres on a hotly contested debate over how much information needs to be explicit in disclosure documents.

In 2021, Leigh and Harvin Gonzales’s put an offer on a ground-floor apartment in Toronto’s Scarborough area, and as part of that transaction received what’s known as a status certificate, which is a kind of confessional that breaks down the financial health and potential risks facing a condo building. Later in 2023, when the couple was contesting a demand that they pay $21,905 (part of a $3.2-million special assessment covering the building’s balcony replacements) they also received a second demand for $19,600 for the cost of removing a solarium attached to their unit that dated from 1986 and was not permitted by the corporation.