Asking Your Ontario Condo Corporation for Its Records: What an Owner Can See, How Fast, and at What Cost

Budgets, audits, reserve fund plans, minutes, contracts: each record type sits on one side of a line the regulation draws, and that line sets the deadline and the bill.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate Broker in Toronto. Picture the week before your condo’s annual general meeting. There is a vote coming, and before you cast yours you want two documents in front of you: the plan the board has proposed for funding the reserve fund going forward, and the latest auditor’s report. Neither is in the meeting package, and you are not sure whether you are entitled to them, how long they take, or whether the corporation can bill you.

Ontario’s Condominium Act, 1998, s.55(3) gives every owner, purchaser and mortgagee the right to examine or copy the corporation’s records, subject to a short list of exclusions. The useful way to read that right is one record type at a time, because the regulation treats a reserve fund plan very differently from a three-year-old contract. Both of the documents in that AGM scenario happen to be core records, which is the best possible news for timing and cost.

One request, one prescribed form, any mix of records

You can bundle different record types into a single request, and the board sorts them for you. According to O. Reg. 48/01 s.13.3 (2026 consolidation), the request has to be made on the form the regulation prescribes (s.13.3(3)), and it must relate solely to your interests as an owner, purchaser or mortgagee (s.13.3(1)). You do not have to state the purpose of the request (s.13.3(2)).

Delivery counts if you send it by prepaid mail or courier to the address for service of the corporation or its condominium management provider, drop it in that address’s mail box, or send it to an address the board has designated by resolution. Email or another electronic method counts only if the board has passed a resolution accepting it (s.13.3(4)).

The board then has 30 days to respond on the prescribed form (s.13.3(6)). That response must list every record you asked for and, for each one, give a description, say whether it is a core record, say whether access is allowed, state any fee, and, for any refusal, give the reason and the provision relied on, plus where you can examine or pick up the record (s.13.3(7)). That index is what you will use to check everything that follows.

(a) Governing documents: declaration, by-laws and rules

These are core item 1 in the definition in O. Reg. 48/01 s.1(1). They are the documents that tell you what the corporation can and cannot do, so they are worth having before any vote.

Cost: nothing if delivered electronically; nothing for a paper copy if you asked for electronic; printing only (no more than 20 cents a page) for a paper copy you did not ask to receive electronically; if you examine paper copies in person, the actual labour cost during the examination plus printing (s.13.3(8) paras. 3–6).

Timing: if the corporation keeps them electronically and you asked for electronic delivery, they arrive within the same 30-day window the board has to respond (s.13.6(1)). A paper copy is due within 7 days after you return the board’s response form and pay any fee (s.13.6(2) and (4)). If you asked for electronic delivery but the corporation keeps the record only on paper, the paper copy is due within the 30-day response window instead (s.13.6(3)).

(b) The money records: budget, financial statements, audit, reserve fund plan

This is the cluster that matters in the AGM scenario, and four of its records are core:

• The budget for the current fiscal year and every amendment made to it (core item 3).
• The latest financial statements the board has approved under s.66(3) of the Act (core item 4).
• The latest auditor’s report presented to the audit committee or the board under s.67(6) (core item 5).
• The current plan proposed by the board under s.94(8) for future funding of the reserve fund (core item 6). Under s.94(8), that is the plan the board proposes after reviewing a reserve fund study.

Two things fall outside the core list as written. The reserve fund study itself is not one of the ten items (the Act requires the corporation to keep a record of all studies under s.55(1) para. 7, but the core definition names only the current funding plan), and older budgets, statements and audit reports are not core because each item is limited to the current or latest one. A by-law can add records to the core list (core item 10), so check your corporation’s by-laws.

For the four core money records, the same cost and timing rules as governing documents apply: electronic delivery within the 30-day response window at no charge if the corporation keeps them electronically. For the study or prior-year statements, the non-core rules in (d) below apply.

(c) Minutes: the 12-month line

Minutes of owners’ meetings and board meetings are core only if the meeting was held within the 12 months before the corporation receives your request (or your response to the board’s answer) (core item 9). Periodic information certificates the corporation sent, or was required to send, to owners in that same 12-month window are also core (core item 8).

Minutes older than that are non-core. You can still ask for them: the right in s.55(3) covers the minute book the Act requires the corporation to keep under s.55(1) para. 2. The difference is the clock and the fee. A non-core record is due within 30 days after you return the response and pay (s.13.5 and s.13.7), and the fee can be a reasonable estimate of the actual labour and delivery cost, including any redaction time (s.13.3(8) and (9)).

If you want both recent and older minutes, ask for them in one request. The board’s index will split them, and the core portion follows the faster timetable.

(d) Contracts and everything else that is not core

The Act requires the corporation to keep a copy of all agreements it enters into (s.55(1) para. 8). Only one kind is core: agreements under s.113 or s.154(5) of the Act, which are agreements for the mutual use, provision or maintenance, or cost-sharing, of facilities or services (core item 2). A property management contract, a contractor’s agreement or a service contract that is not of that kind is non-core.

Two record types you might assume are off-limits are actually core: the record of owners and mortgagees the corporation keeps under s.46.1(3), and the record of lease notices it keeps under s.83(3) (core item 7). And although records about employees are excluded, employment contracts between the corporation and its employees are expressly carved back in (s.55(4)(a)).

Non-core cost and timing: the fee must be a reasonable estimate of the corporation’s actual labour and delivery costs and must be reasonable, with printing capped at 20 cents a page (s.13.3(8)). It may vary with whether the record is kept electronically, whether you want to examine it or get a copy, whether it needs redacting, and how much time the board estimates spending (s.13.3(9)). Delivery is due within 30 days after you return the response and pay (s.13.5 and s.13.7).

(e) The records you cannot see

Section 55(4) of the Act removes four categories from the right of access:

• records relating to the corporation’s employees, except their employment contracts;
• records relating to actual or contemplated litigation (as defined by the regulations) or insurance investigations involving the corporation;
• records relating to specific units or owners, except records about your own unit or about you as owner, and the s.46.1 owner record (s.55(5));
• prescribed records.

The prescribed list is in O. Reg. 48/01 s.13.11(2): owners’ and mortgagees’ electronic communication addresses the corporation keeps under s.46.1; a lawyer’s or licensed paralegal’s report or opinion to the corporation about specific units or owners, and the communications made to obtain it; and any portion of a ballot or proxy form that identifies specific units or owners, unless a by-law provides otherwise.

One limit on the exclusions matters: records about people in their capacity as directors or officers are not “records relating to specific units or owners” (s.13.11(1)). A director’s conduct as a director is not shielded by the specific-owner exclusion. Where a record is only partly excluded, the board can redact the excluded part, and it must give you written reasons and the provision relied on when it does (s.13.8(1)(b)).

When the board refuses, or never answers

Disputes about s.55(1) to (6) and (8) of the Act, and about ss.13.1 to 13.11 of O. Reg. 48/01, are within the jurisdiction of the Condominium Authority Tribunal (O. Reg. 179/17 s.1(1)(a) and (c)). That covers a refusal, a fee you consider unreasonable, a missed deadline, and a board that does not respond at all.

According to the Condominium Act, 1998 (s.1.44(1) para. 6 and s.1.44(3)), if the Tribunal finds the corporation refused access without reasonable excuse, it can order the corporation to pay you a penalty of up to $5,000. An order to pay is due within 30 days unless the order sets another time, and if the corporation does not pay, an owner may set the amount off against the condo fees payable for the unit (s.1.45(1) and (3)). Because the Tribunal can hear these disputes, the older Small Claims Court route in s.55(8) to (10) does not apply to them (s.55(11)).

The regulation also sets two time limits. A request is treated as abandoned if, within 60 days of receiving the board’s response, you neither return the response with the fee nor apply to the Tribunal (s.13.10(1)), and if you do not apply to the Tribunal within 6 months of delivering the request (s.13.10(2)). How those periods apply to your dates is a question for a lawyer if anything is borderline.

Your records request, in two passes

Run through the first group before you send anything, and the second only if the board’s answer is a refusal or silence.