Condominium Property Act, 1993: What It Means for Owners in Saskatchewan

If you own or are buying a condo in Saskatchewan, a single statute sits behind most of your rights and duties. Knowing what it covers helps you read your bylaws, board decisions and sale documents with more confidence.

This guide gives a plain overview of The Condominium Property Act, 1993 and its regulations, focusing on bylaws, leasing, reserve funds, estoppel certificates and what new and resale buyers can expect.

This article covers the law of Saskatchewan.

What the Act and regulations cover

The Condominium Property Act, 1993 (c. C-26.1) and The Condominium Property Regulations, 2001 govern Saskatchewan condominiums. Together they set the framework for how a condominium corporation operates and how owners relate to it.

Your own bylaws and condominium plan add detail specific to your building. When there is a question, the Act, the regulations and your bylaws all need to be read together, and a lawyer can help if they seem to pull in different directions.

The topics below are the ones owners and buyers most often run into:

• Bylaws, including how they can be amended and what they cannot restrict.
• The reserve fund and the study that supports it.
• Estoppel certificates issued by the corporation.
• The documents a buyer receives on a resale or a new unit.

Bylaws and leasing your unit

Bylaws can be amended by special resolution. The details of how a particular change is proposed and approved in your building depend on your bylaws and the facts, so it is worth confirming with a lawyer before you rely on a vote or a notice.

One limit matters to investors and owners who move away: no bylaw may prohibit or restrict the lease of units (s. 44(2)). A bylaw that tries to ban rentals outright runs into that rule.

The reserve fund

The reserve fund is a corporation asset held in trust for statutory purposes, and it cannot be paid out to owners while the property remains under the Act (s. 61). Its purposes include unforeseen common expenses and major repair or replacement of common property and building systems (s. 55(3)).

In plain words, holding the fund in trust means the money is set aside for the building rather than for individual owners. Whether a particular repair fits those purposes depends on the facts, so it is worth confirming with a lawyer if you are unsure.

A reserve fund study must be done every five years by a qualified person, such as an engineer or Certified Reserve Planner. There is an exception: condominiums with fewer than 12 units, and single-owner rental condominiums, are exempt from the reserve fund requirement.

Estoppel certificates and buying a unit

On an owner's application, a condominium corporation must issue an estoppel certificate in the prescribed form, and the corporation cannot later deny what it certified. The 2001 Regulations allow a fee of up to $200.

For a resale unit, the buyer can request an estoppel certificate from the corporation. It covers fee payment status, contribution amounts, insurance, and outstanding lawsuits or judgments against the corporation.

New units work differently. For new condominiums, the developer must give the buyer a copy or description of the purchase agreement, bylaws, management agreement and condominium plan, among other documents.

What to do next

If you are buying, you can also look at the title itself. ISC Quick Search finds currently active titles by parcel number, title number, owner name or land description, but it does not show previous owners or interests that were removed; the advanced Search tool covers those. Mortgages and liens appear on a title as interests.

On costs, in a standard Law Society offer-to-purchase template each party pays their own lawyer, and the purchaser pays the Land Titles Registry fees to register the property in the purchaser's name and to register the purchaser's mortgage. Your own offer may differ, so read it closely.

• Get a current copy of your bylaws and any amendments.
• Ask whether the building has had a recent reserve fund study, and check whether the five-year timing applies to it.
• If buying a resale unit, request the estoppel certificate and read it carefully.
• If buying new, confirm you received the developer's documents.
• Before a vote or dispute, have a lawyer review the Act, regulations and your bylaws together.

Frequently asked questions