Litigation 

As a last resort, you may have to go to court to defend an application that the board has taken against you or to take the condo corporation to court.

Be sure that this is what you want to do as it will cost a lot in:
 • money
 • time
 • stress and lost sleep
 • hard feelings with some of your neighbours

Select a lawyer
You need two attributes in a lawyer; competence and comfort.

You will need a lawyer who is experienced in condominium law. Don't hire a local real estate lawyer because he/she will cost a $100 less an hour. You do not want to spend your money having your lawyer learn the Condominium Act and all the relevant court judgments that are relevant to your case.

You also need a lawyer who empathizes with your situation and who you fully trust to act in your best interests. 

Outline
You will need to bring an written outline of your case with you highlighting what you think are the important points.

Fees
You will need to talk to your lawyer about his hourly fees and disbursements. You will also have to him/her a retainer of a few thousand dollars, the amount depends of the complexity of the case and how many hours the lawyer expects to need in the first few weeks.

Be honest
Don't lie to your lawyer and don't embellish incidents that are part of the case. At the same time, your lawyer must be perfectly honest with you. If you don't have much of a case, you need to be told so.

Assistance
Depending on the case and your abilities, you may be able to do a lot of the work yourself. If you can organize all your documents and lay them out in order that itself can save a lot of time.

It really helps if you can type and use MS Word and the Internet. You can also save a lot of money by serving your court papers yourself.

top   contents   chapter   previous   next