Coronavirus and Condominiums

COVID-19 is affecting our communities in numerous ways. The social and economic impact of this virus (and the fear of the same) is unlike anything we have seen for generations.

Condominium communities provide another level of concern due to the close proximity to one resident to another. Accordingly, your condominium corporation should consider taking active steps to mitigate the level of risk for your residents, guests and your employees/contractors.

The first step would be to look at credible sources of information regarding the threat, and the preventative measures that should be taken. Some resources include:

• The World Health Organization
•  Government of Canada
• Government of Saskatchewan

There is a lot of unknown on how badly we are going to be affected, and how significant it will be. The best approach would be to exercise caution now, and be flexible upon information becoming available over time.

There are some condominium specific issues that unit owners and boards should consider, including:

• General Sanitation
  • Main responsibility of the condominium corporation is to maintain the common property and common areas to the benefit of all owners.
  • Consider more regular and in-depth cleaning of the highest traffic areas in your properties. Entrances and exits, elevators, common rooms, gyms and mail rooms are all areas that may require an extra level of attention.
  • Engage in communication with residents regularly. Request confirmation from anyone who is being quarantined (whether self-imposed or not) and consider necessary precautions.
  • Provide signage regarding the risk and other resources (like hand sanitizer at entrances) to assist in #flatteningTheCurve.
• Annual General Meetings
  • Given the suggestion to limit gatherings, many condominiums are considering delaying their AGMs. The Act does require AGMs to be held within 15 months of one another, and you should obtain advice if you are considering extending beyond that point.
  • If you decide to continue these AGMs, you may still want to consider alternative methods of protecting individuals, including:
    • Attending through proxy, or electronic means.
    • Staggered attendance to minimize bottlenecks at registration
    • Making sure that the venue is not going to cancel on you anyway.

• Social Gatherings
  • Consider a more restrictive policy for the use of common spaces, or the necessary cleaning upon use of a common space.
  • Cancel social gatherings in those spaces until such time that the risk has been minimized.
• Ongoing Repair/Inspections
  • Consider suspending any non-essential maintenance or repair to property, especially that requiring individuals to attend within an owner’s unit.
  • Check in with suppliers/contractors re their processes to minimize spreading infection.
  • Be respectful of owner’s concerns of individuals attending their unit, and see if there are any mitigation strategies that can be used to alleviate some of those concerns.
• Employment/Workplace Safety
  • Employers have obligations to provide safe workplaces. There are a number of legal issues that could relate to this, and need to be considered on their individual facts and circumstances.

A number of these items may require some legal advice. For those clients who would like to discuss with me, I am supporting our own firm’s initiatives to exercise social distancing. Any advice that we can provide over the phone, through email or through videoconferencing would be ideal.  As always, conflict searches and the like need to be completed before taking on any new clients.

My non-legal commentary on this is to try and benefit from the type of community that you have bought into. Hopefully the community itself can collaborate on making the adjustments necessary to protect each other, while taking the necessary social distancing steps to minimize transmission. It is possible that due to the increased need (or perceived need) to certain services and products that access to them will be in short supply. Condo communities can use common sense, empathy and compassion to support each other in this difficult time.