CONDOMINIUM AUTHORITY TRIBUNAL
DATE: October 2, 2025
CASE: 2025-00315R
Citation: Puxty v. Frontenanc Condominium Corporation No. 57, 2025 ONCAT 166
Order under section 1.44 of the Condominium Act, 1998.
Member: Mary Ann Spencer, Member
The Applicant,
Ben Puxty
Self-Represented
The Respondent,
Frontenac Condominium Corporation No. 57
Represented by Cheryll Wood, Counsel
Hearing: Written Online Hearing – August 11, 2025 to September 26, 2025
REASONS FOR DECISION
A. INTRODUCTION
[1] Ben Puxty is the owner of a unit of Frontenac Condominium Corporation No. 57 (“FCC 57” or “the corporation”). Between March and June of 2025, Mr. Puxty submitted four Requests for Records to the corporation. He alleges that it has failed to provide him with all of the records he is entitled to receive, that the records he did receive are overly redacted, and that the estimated fee for the provision of the building repair invoices he requested is unreasonable. He submits that the corporation has refused to provide records without reasonable excuse and requests the Tribunal order it to pay a penalty. He further submits that the corporation is failing to keep adequate records as required by s. 55 (1) of the Condominium Act, 1998 (the “Act”). He requests his costs in this matter.
[2] The corporation’s position is that it has not refused to provide records without reasonable excuse; it has provided Mr. Puxty with all of the records in its possession and will provide the building repair invoices upon receipt of the estimated fee. It submits that the redactions in the records it provided are in accordance with s. 55 (4) of the Act and that it is keeping adequate records. The corporation argues that Mr. Puxty has filed his application with the Tribunal for an improper purpose. It requests that the Tribunal dismiss his application and award its costs on a full indemnity basis.
[3] For the reasons set out below, I find that the corporation has not refused to provide records without reasonable excuse and that it is keeping adequate records. I find the fee for the building repair invoices to be reasonable notwithstanding that I am ordering the corporation to modify it very slightly. I am also ordering the corporation to review and more carefully redact the minutes of board meetings held between February and May, 2025. I order no costs in this matter.
B. BACKGROUND
[4] The Stage 2 Summary and Order prepared by the Mediator in this matter indicated that Mr. Puxty’s unit is for sale. Therefore, at the outset of this proceeding, I advised him that if the unit were to be sold that he would no longer have standing in this matter as the right to examine records set out in section 55 (3) of the Act applies to owners. He then advised me that he had accepted an offer to purchase his unit with a closing date of October 15, 2025. As the sale of Mr. Puxty’s unit had not been completed, the hearing in this matter proceeded.
[5] Mr. Puxty requested the following records in the four Requests for Records at issue in this matter:
March 7, 2025 Request:
• Periodic information certificates for the past 12 months
• Most recent financial statements
• Minutes of board meetings held within the last 12 months
March 27, 2025 Request:
• All General Ledgers for 2024 (un-redacted UNLESS specific unit names are mentioned, other than mine)
April 7, 2025 Request:
• Minutes of board meetings held between January 1 and April 27, 2025
• All detailed invoices of repair Work done in the building in any form (Building/Units) that the corporation paid for in any form for the period August 1, 2024 to April 27, 2025
June 27, 2025 Request:
• Record of Owner and Mortgagees
• Budget for the corporation’s current fiscal year including any amendments
• Minutes of board meetings held between January 1 and June 27, 2025
• Periodic Information Certificates (“PICs”) and Information Certificate Updates (“ICUs”) for the period January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2024
I note that Mr. Puxty requested records for a period extending beyond the date of his April 7, 2025 Request. This was unreasonable; a corporation cannot provide records that do not yet exist.
C. ISSUES & ANALYSIS
[6] The parties agreed that the issues to be decided in this matter are:
1. Has the Applicant received all of the records he is entitled to receive?
2. Is the fee estimated by the Respondent for the provision of the invoices for building repairs reasonable?
3. Is the Respondent keeping adequate records as required by s. 55 (1) of the Act?
4. Did the Respondent refuse to provide records without reasonable excuse and if so, is a penalty warranted?
5. Should the Tribunal award costs in this matter?
Issue 1: Has the Applicant received all of the records he is entitled to receive?
[7] Mr. Puxty submitted that he has not received all of the records he requested and that certain records that he did receive have been overly redacted. Further, he stated that when the corporation provided the records, it failed to provide the accompanying statements required by 13.8 (1) (b) of Ontario Regulation 48/01 (“O. Reg. 48/01”).
[8] Mr. Puxty indicated that he did not receive the following records when the corporation initially responded to his Requests:
• March 7th Request: minutes of board meetings for February and March, 2025
• April 7th Request: minutes of board meetings for March and April, 2025; building repair invoices
• June 27th Request: board meeting minutes for June, 2025; PICs from 2019 to October, 2022 and five ICUs from 2020 to 2023; updated budget.
[9] There is no evidence that the corporation is withholding any records. While he described the above-noted records as “missing”, Mr. Puxty acknowledged that he received the minutes of the February board meeting in response to his April 7th Request and the minutes of the March and April meetings in response to his June 27th Request. The evidence is that he did not receive these minutes when he initially requested them because they either had not yet been approved or, in the case of the April minutes requested on April 7th, a meeting had not yet been held. Similarly, the June board meeting minutes had not been approved as of the date of his June 27, 2025 request.
[10] Further, the “missing” building repair invoices requested in Mr. Puxty’s April 7, 2025 Request are non-core records for which the corporation is entitled to charge a fee. FCC 57 has indicated it will provide the invoices upon receipt of the estimated fee. Mr. Puxty disputes the reasonableness of that fee, which I address under Issue 2 in this decision.
[11] With respect to the PICs and ICUs and the amended budget which Mr. Puxty indicated he did not receive, the corporation advised him that these records do not exist. It did provide the PICs issued in both 2023 and 2024, the ICUs issued in 2024 and one ICU issued in 2020, and the budget for the 2025 fiscal year. With respect to the budget, Mr. Puxty referred to board meeting minutes which he stated indicated the budget had been amended; however, the references are to expenditure pressures. There is no evidence that the budget he received has been amended.
[12] Mr. Puxty presented his case with respect to his belief that the records he did receive are overly redacted under Issue 3, whether the corporation is keeping adequate records. While Mr. Puxty may not have found the redacted records adequate for his purpose, the question to be addressed is whether he was entitled to receive less extensively redacted records.
[13] Section 55 (4) of the Act sets out certain exceptions to an owner’s right to examine or obtain copies of records:
The right to examine or obtain copies of records under subsection (3) does not apply to,
(a) records relating to employees of the corporation, except for contracts of employment between any of the employees and the corporation;
(b) records relating to actual or contemplated litigation, as determined by the regulations, or insurance investigations involving the corporation;
(c) subject to subsection (5), records relating to specific units or owners; or
(d) any prescribed records.
Section 55 (5) states that the exception set out in section 55 (4) (c) does not apply to records requested by an owner which relate to that owner.
[14] Mr. Puxty submitted that the corporation both overly redacted some of the records it provided to him and that it failed to provide accompanying statements to explain the reason for the redactions. He referred me to the Tribunal’s decision in Petrovic v. York Condominium Corporation No. 60, 2022 ONCAT 49, a case in which the applicant alleged that the respondent corporation had overly redacted records and had failed to provide the required accompanying statement. The Tribunal ordered the corporation to provide the statement. At paragraph 17, the Tribunal wrote:
In most circumstances it is possible through context clues to guess the basis for the redaction – like where the minutes discuss a specific unit, and the unit number is blacked out. But, for the longer redactions it is not possible to understand the basis for the redaction. Owners should not have to guess the basis for the redactions. I will therefore order that the Respondent provide an updated accompanying statement document that explains the basis of each redaction.
[15] FCC 57’s Counsel submits that the redactions it made are reasonable and that Mr. Puxty provided no basis to support his allegation that they are not. In its decision in Mellon v. Halton Condominium Corporation No. 70, 2019 ONCAT 2, a case in which the scope of redaction of board minutes was at issue, at paragraph 39, the Tribunal wrote:
… The complete redaction of all words in each of the subject paragraphs (including redaction of information relating to the Applicant and the Applicant’s unit, if that was the case) suggests that the Respondent was not careful in making its redactions, but simply blanked out all contents of all paragraphs that included any reference to an owner or unit, without considering whether or not some information could be preserved without disclosing private or personal information about an owner or unit.
Because entire sections of the minutes had been redacted, the Tribunal found that the applicant’s belief that the redactions were excessive was not unreasonable. It ordered the corporation to “more carefully revise the redacted minutes” ensuring that “redactions are restricted to information that is considered reasonably likely to identify another owner or unit.”
[16] Mr. Puxty submitted that the redaction of information relating to him in the minutes he received in response to his March 7, 2025 Request was inappropriate. Section 55 (4) (c) of the Act states that owners are not entitled to receive records related to specific units or owners. However, s. 55 (5) of the Act states that this exception does not apply to an owner’s request for records that relate to the owner’s unit. In this case, the corporation electronically redacted the minutes which were e-mailed to Mr. Puxty in pdf format. He discovered that the redacted information became visible if the blocked areas were copied and pasted into another software program. He has been able to access all of the information in these minutes. Therefore, whether they were overly redacted is moot.
[17] Mr. Puxty raised the issue of the electronic redaction of the minutes as a “redaction protocol” issue. The methodology a corporation uses to redact records would only concern the Tribunal if it adversely affected the production of records. I note that Janice Kermeen, the corporation’s condominium manager, testified that the corporation was made aware of this issue when Mr. Puxty filed this case with the Tribunal. It then ceased redacting records electronically.
[18] I have reviewed the board meeting minutes dated from February to May, 2025 which Mr. Puxty also indicated are at issue and I find that his belief that they have been overly redacted is not unreasonable. For example, items 3 to 7 and item 9 of the in-camera minutes of the February 24, 2025 meeting are completely blacked out. Other redactions are so extensive that they provide no indication of the subject matter; for example, everything but “information only” is redacted on item 10 of the minutes of the April 24, 2025 meeting.
[19] I recognize that the redaction of records requires the exercise of some judgment. However, based on my review, it appears that FCC 57’s approach to redaction is conservative with the result that more information is removed than may be necessary to protect the identity of owners or units. Therefore, I am ordering it to review and more carefully revise the redactions of the minutes of the meetings held on February 24, March 24, April 24, and May 21, 2025 to ensure that the redactions only remove information that is reasonably likely to identify other owners or units. I note that this may still result in significant redaction of the documents.
[20] Mr. Puxty also identified 14 entries on the 37 page general ledger he received which he indicated were over-redactions. I have reviewed the redactions. The vast majority are in the “Person/Description” column and clearly remove owners’ names. In other instances, such as landscaping-related charges, the “Remarks” column provides sufficient information to explain the entry. While he provided other examples of redactions that he considered to be inappropriate, I have reviewed them and do not find them to be significant. For example, he highlighted an entry where the “Person/Description” and “Remarks” were redacted. However, the dollar amount is zero.
[21] Mr. Puxty also submitted that when the corporation delivered records to him, it failed to provide the accompanying statements required by section 13.8 (1) of O. Reg. 48/01, which states, in part:
13. 8 (1) Each copy of a record that the corporation makes available for examination or delivers under any of sections 13.4 to 13.7 shall be accompanied by,
(a) a separate written document that is addressed to the requester and that clearly identifies the record that is being made available or delivered, as the case may be;
(b) if the board has determined that the corporation will redact the record to remove any part that the board has determined that the corporation will not allow the requester to examine or of which it will not allow the requester to obtain a copy, a written statement of the board’s reason for its determination and an indication on which provision of section 55 of the Act or this Regulation the board bases its reason;
[22] The evidence is that an accompanying statement was sent to Mr. Puxty when the corporation provided the general ledger requested in his March 27, 2025, Request. However, while that statement sets out the actual cost of producing this non-core record, it makes no reference to its redactions.
[23] Ms. Kermeen testified that she did provide reasons for the redaction of the records sent in response to the June 27, 2025 Request for Records. In the e-mail dated July 25, 2025 which accompanied the records sent to Mr. Puxty, she wrote, “redactions are related to units, people, legal matters or possible legal matters, private information, employment matters”. She testified “my understanding is that the explanations do not need to be an in-depth explanation sent as a separate covering letter, but rather a simple communication indicating what the redactions apply to.” In past decisions, the Tribunal has found that an e-mail setting out the information required by section 13.8 (1) (b) satisfies the requirement for an accompanying statement. However, Ms. Kermeen’s e-mail did not set out the reason for the redaction of each record provided or cite the relevant provision of the Act.
[24] I am ordering the corporation to provide the accompanying statements required by subsection 13.8 (1) (b) when it provides the minutes of the meetings which I am ordering it to review and revise. I make no order with respect to the general ledger; the context of the redactions makes the reason for them largely self-evident.
[25] I am ordering that the revised minutes and accompanying statements be provided within 30 days of the date of this decision. I recognize that this deadline will extend beyond October 15, 2025, the date the sale of Mr. Puxty’s unit is scheduled to close. Section 13.3 (1) of O. Reg. 48/01 states that an owner’s right to examine records must be solely related to their interests as an owner for the purposes of the Act. Given the sale of the unit is scheduled to close on October 15, 2025, these records need not be provided before that date. However, I recognize that there is a possibility that the sale may not be completed. If Mr. Puxty continues to own his unit after October 15, 2025, the corporation will have sufficient time to provide the revised documents.
Issue 2: Is the fee estimated by the Respondent for the provision of the invoices for building repairs reasonable?
[26] The Board Response to Records sent in response to Mr. Puxty’s April 7, 2025 Request stated that his request for the invoices for building repair work for the period August 1, 2024 to April 27, 2025 (which I note should be only to April 7, 2025) was being deferred because the invoices were with the corporation’s auditor. Although the Board Response does not state this, Ms. Kermeen testified that it was the corporation’s intent to provide a fee estimate for these non-core records when the documents were returned.
[27] The Stage 2 Summary and Order prepared by the Mediator in this matter indicates that during the Stage 2 – Mediation the corporation provided the estimated fee of $375 to provide the records. Mr. Puxty indicated that it was somehow unacceptable that this offer was presented to him by the Mediator rather than directly by the corporation. I note that it is not at all unusual for information to be relayed by a Mediator in a Stage 2 proceeding. He also stated that no detail supporting the fee was provided.
[28] Ms. Kermeen testified that the $375 fee is based on the provision of 180 documents. The corporation estimated that 11 hours at the labour rate of $30 an hour would be required to review the documents for any required redaction and to copy them. I find both the labour rate and the estimated hours to be reasonable. However, she also testified that the copying charge was based on 25 cents per page. Section 13.3 (8) of O. Reg. 48/01 states “The board shall establish a charge of no more than 20 cents per page for printing or photocopying.” Therefore I am ordering the corporation to reduce the total estimated fee to $366.
[29] It is important to note that the fee is only an estimate. When a corporation provides a record, section 13. 8 (1) of O. Reg. 48/01 requires that it also provide an accompanying statement. That statement must set out the actual cost of production and the difference between that cost and the fee it received. If the fee paid exceeds the actual cost, the corporation must provide a refund of the difference. As with the revised board minutes, I am ordering the corporation to provide the building repair invoices within 30 days of receipt of the fee. Should Mr. Puxty elect to pay the fee but cease to be an owner before the documents are delivered, the corporation will be required to refund the fee.
Issue 3: Is the Respondent keeping adequate records as required by s. 55 (1) of the Act?
[30] Section 55 (1) of the Act states, “the corporation shall keep adequate records” and sets out a list of the records which must be kept. However, the word “adequate” is not defined in the Act. In McKay v. Waterloo North Condominium Corp. No. 23, 1992 CanLII 7501 (ON SC), a case which addressed the entitlement of owners to access corporation records, Cavarzan J. provides some guidance:
The Act obliges the corporation to keep adequate records. One is impelled to ask – adequate for what? An examination of the Act provides some answers. The objects of the corporation are to manage the property and any assets of the corporation (s. 12 (1)). It has a duty to control, manage and administer the common elements and the assets of the corporation (s. 12 (2)). It has a duty to effect compliance by the owners with the Act, the declaration, the by-laws and the rules (s. 12 (3)). Each owner enjoys the correlative right to the performance of any duty of the corporation specified by the Act, the declaration, the by-laws and the rules. The records of the corporation must be adequate, therefore, to permit it to fulfil its duties and obligations.
The adequacy of records is determined by whether the records a corporation keeps allow it to fulfill its obligations, not by whether they provide an owner with all of the information they are seeking.
[31] In its decision in Yeung v. Metropolitan Toronto Condominium Corporation No. 1136, 2020 ONCAT 33, a case concerning the minutes of a board meeting, the Tribunal determined that accuracy of a record is a component of adequacy. At paragraph 15, the Tribunal wrote:
Considering the scheme and provisions of the Act and the submissions of both parties in this case, I have no hesitation in affirming that accuracy is a component of adequacy in respect of condominium records. I also find that the use of the word “adequate” in the legislation suggests, in and of itself, tolerance for a degree of imperfection. The question is just how much inaccuracy may be tolerated before a record is rendered inadequate to, as Cavarzan J. stated, “permit [the condominium corporation] to fulfill its duties and obligations.”
[32] Mr. Puxty alleges that FCC 57’s records are inadequate because they are “incomplete, inaccurate and over-redacted”. He noted that the corporation could not provide all of the PICs and ICUs he requested and raised what he alleges are inaccuracies in the PICs and omissions in the board meeting minutes he did receive. As I have noted above in paragraph 11, the redaction of records is a question of entitlement to records, not their adequacy.
[33] In his June 27, 2025 Request for Records, Mr. Puxty requested PICs and ICUs dating from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2024. He did not receive PICs from 2019 to October, 2022 or five ICUs from 2020 to 2023 because the corporation did not possess them.
[34] PICs and ICUs are not listed among the records which section 55 (1) of the Act and section 13.1 (1) of O. Reg. 48/01 states a corporation shall keep. Nor are they listed among the records retention requirements set out in section 13.1 (2) of O. Reg. 48/01. In its decision in Jackson v. Simcoe Condominium Corporation No. 69, 2025 ONCAT 56, the Tribunal found that because PICs are defined as a core record in O. Reg. 48/01, the corporation must keep them for at least 12 months. There is no requirement with respect to ICUs. Therefore, the fact that the corporation was unable to provide the older PICs and ICUs Mr. Puxty requested is not a failure to keep adequate records.
[35] Mr. Puxty also alleged that there were errors in the PICs he received, citing the amount of the reserve fund opening balance in the PICs issued in 2024 and 2023, which the evidence indicates do not correspond to the amounts in the audited financial statements of the preceding years. The other examples he cited are not possible to confirm based on the documents he filed. For example, he indicated that the 2024 PICs misstate the contribution to the reserve based on his reading of the general ledger but did not refer to a specific entry in that document. Isolated examples of inaccuracies in records the corporation is no longer required to keep or which can be corrected in the next PIC it issues do not support a finding that the corporation is failing to keep adequate records.
[36] A further example Mr. Puxty provided was that the general ledger he received contains a partially redacted entry labelled “settlement” but because of redactions, he cannot determine whether this is related to a reference in the November, 2024 board minutes. He submitted this “raises further concerns about adequacy, since owners cannot tell whether these two entries are related, why the payment was made, or why the Board covered this amount”. This example relates to the extent of the records’ redaction, not their adequacy. Further, the adequacy of a corporation’s records is not determined by whether they meet an individual owner’s expectations.
[37] For the reasons set out in the preceding three paragraphs, I find that the corporation is not failing to keep adequate records.
Issue 4: Did the Respondent refuse to provide records without reasonable excuse and if so, is a penalty warranted?
[38] There is no evidence that FCC 57 refused to provide any records to Mr. Puxty; the Board Response to Request for Records for each of the four Requests at issue in this matter indicate that the corporation approved Mr. Puxty’s requests. The only exception was the Response to the April 7, 2025 request for building repair invoices which stated that the corporation was deferring the request until the audit was complete and the invoices were returned from the auditor. Mr. Puxty characterizes this as an “outright refusal”, stating that the board meeting minutes dated April 24, 2025 indicate the auditor had not yet been engaged. In fact, those minutes clearly state that the corporation’s records were with the auditor. I find a deferral in these circumstances to be reasonable.
[39] Mr. Puxty also characterizes the fact that the corporation could not provide PICs pre-dating 2023 or ICUs from 2020 to 2023 as an outright refusal. I dismiss this argument. As noted above in paragraph 34, the only retention provision for these documents is that PICs must be retained for at least 12 months.
[40] The minutes of the corporation’s June, 2025 board meeting is the final record which Mr. Puxty indicated the board outright refused to provide. These were requested in the June 27, 2025 Request. In her July 25, 2025 e-mail accompanying the records sent to Mr. Puxty, Ms. Kermeen wrote “Minutes from June are not yet approved as there was no board meeting in July.” Mr. Puxty argues that the corporation is being untruthful about a meeting not being held. However, whether the corporation held a meeting in July is not relevant; Mr. Puxty was only entitled to receive the records as of the date of his Request. The minutes were not approved as of June 27, 2025 and therefore there was no refusal to provide records.
[41] Mr. Puxty further argues that the delay in providing other minutes of meetings comprises a refusal. I reject this argument; the evidence is that there was no delay. As I have set out above in paragraph 9, the minutes that he indicated were “missing” and which he also argues were “delayed” did not exist as of the date they were initially requested. For example, he requested the minutes of the March, 2025 board meeting in both his April 7, 2025 and June 27, 2025 Requests. The minutes had not been approved as of April 7; that they were provided in response to his June 27 Request is not a “delay”.
[42] Mr. Puxty also argued that the over-redaction of records he did receive was in effect a refusal. I reject this argument. While in some cases, the provision of extensively redacted records could be deemed to be a refusal to provide records, based on the evidence before me, I do not find that to be the case here. The redactions in the board meeting minutes do not represent a significant portion of those documents. And, I have rejected Mr. Puxty’s submission that the general ledger was over-redacted.
[43] Section 1.44 (6) of the Act states that the Tribunal may award a penalty if it considers that a corporation has refused to provide records without reasonable excuse. For the reasons set out in the preceding five paragraphs, I find there was no refusal to provide records without reasonable excuse and therefore no penalty is warranted in this case.
Issue 5: Should the Tribunal award costs in this matter?
[44] Mr. Puxty requests reimbursement of the $200 in Tribunal fees he has paid. FCC 57 requests costs of $22,801.37, inclusive of HST, in respect of the legal fees it has incurred in this matter.
[45] The award of costs is discretionary. Section 1.44 (2) of the Act states that an order for costs shall be made in accordance with the rules of the Tribunal. The cost related rules of the Tribunal’s Rules of Practice applicable to this case are:
48.1 If a Case is not resolved by Settlement Agreement or Consent Order and a CAT Member makes a final decision, the unsuccessful Party will be required to pay the successful Party’s CAT fees unless the CAT member decides otherwise.
48.2 The CAT generally will not order one Party to reimburse another Party for legal fees or disbursements (“costs”) incurred in the course of the proceeding. However, where appropriate, the CAT may order a Party to pay to another Party all or part of their costs, including costs that were directly related to a Party’s behaviour that was unreasonable, undertaken for an improper purpose, or that caused a delay or additional expense.
[46] Mr. Puxty was largely unsuccessful in this matter. While I am ordering the corporation to review the redaction of the minutes of four board meetings and to very slightly revise the fee it estimated for the provision of building repair invoices, I have found that there was no refusal to provide records and that the corporation is keeping adequate records. Therefore, I am not ordering reimbursement of his Tribunal fees.
[47] Counsel for the Respondent submits that FCC 57’s legal costs should be reimbursed on a full indemnity basis because Mr. Puxty filed his application with the Tribunal for the improper purposes of arguing issues of governance and penalizing the corporation. Counsel noted that in both of his two previous CAT cases, he was found to be using records requests to raise governance concerns.[1] Costs not awarded by the Tribunal form part of the expenses of a corporation and are paid by all owners. Counsel submitted that other owners of FCC 57 should not have to pay costs incurred in cases filed to address an individual owner’s views on governance.
[48] In this case, Mr. Puxty did generally focus on records-related issues notwithstanding that some of his testimony, particularly that related to the older PICs and ICUs he requested, indicated that he was more interested in “checking up” on the corporation than in the information the records contain. And, while he did stray into governance matters, for example, by making an unsubstantiated claim that the corporation did not approve board meeting minutes within a reasonable time, he did not overtly raise governance issues.
[49] Counsel also submitted that Mr. Puxty’s Requests for Records were made to find fault with the corporation’s processes and to penalize it, noting that he had received the records he requested or an explanation of why he had not received them before he made his application to the Tribunal. Mr. Puxty emphasized that this case was about a refusal to provide records and about the adequacy of records. He referred me to 15 previous decisions of this Tribunal and the courts in his submissions. Arguably, his research should have provided him with some guidance about the likely success of his case. However, pursuing a case with a limited prospect of success is not improper. And, as noted, Mr. Puxty was partially successful in this matter.
[50] The rules of the Tribunal are clear that legal fees are not generally awarded. I find no reason to award them in the circumstances of this case.
D. CONFIDENTIALITY
[51] Mr. Puxty uploaded the copies of the minutes he received in response to his March 7, 2025 Request for Records to the CAT-ODR system as evidence in this matter. As set out above in paragraph 16, electronic pdf versions of these documents can be manipulated to reveal the redactions which include personal information about other owners. Rule 21.5 of the Condominium Authority Tribunal Rules of Practice states:
The CAT may take any steps and make any directions or Orders that are needed to protect the confidentiality of personal information. The CAT may do this after a request or without a request from a Party, in accordance with the CAO’s Access and Privacy Policy.
[52] I have determined that it is appropriate to protect the confidentiality of the personal information the minutes contain. Therefore, I am ordering that the minutes, marked as Exhibits 7 to 19 inclusive, are deemed confidential and shall not be made available as part of the public record in this matter.
E. ORDER
[53] The Tribunal orders:
1. Subject to Mr. Puxty continuing to own his unit after October 15, 2025, FCC 57, within 30 days of the date of this decision, shall provide him with revised copies of the minutes of the board meetings held on February 24, March 24, April 24, and May 21, 2025, which have been more carefully reviewed and redacted in accordance with section 55 (4) of the Act. The corporation shall ensure that the redactions are restricted to information that could reasonably identify other owners or units. The revised minutes are to be accompanied by the statement required by section 13.8 (1) (b) of O. Reg. 48/01.
2. Within 30 days of the date of receipt of the fee of $366, FCC 57 shall provide Mr. Puxty with the invoices of building repair work requested in his April 7, 2025 Request for Records. Should Mr. Puxty cease to be an owner before the records are provided, the fee shall be refunded.
3. Exhibits 7 through 19 inclusive are deemed confidential and are not to be made available as part of the public record in this matter. The parties in this case must take all reasonable steps to ensure that these records remain private.
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Mary Ann Spencer |
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Member, Condominium Authority Tribunal |
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Released on: October 2, 2025
[1] Puxty v. Frontenac Condominium Corporation No. 57, 2024 ONCAT 122; Puxty v. Frontenac Condominium Corporation No 57, 2025, ONCAT 2.