Miserable! The owner of the apartment in Greater Vancouver was fined $11,000 for installing an air conditioner! It was useless for the property manager to agree!
It can't be messed up
Recently, the weather in Vancouver has been hot, and many citizens are considering installing air conditioners at home. However, the air conditioning in the apartment is not something that can be installed just by looking at it.
A citizen of Richmond was fined more than $11,000 by the building for installing an air conditioner on his patio.
Here's what happened, in 2021, Sina Shakibaei installed an air conditioning unit on his terrace located on the ground floor.
As the deputy chairman of the property, Shakibayi should have been aware that any changes to the common areas would have to be approved by the property management company. Not only that, but the rules and regulations of the property also clearly stipulate that air conditioning equipment cannot be installed.
However, Shakibay claimed to have the consent of the former chairman of the owners' committee and the former property manager. The former chairman and manager also did say that Shakibayi made a request for installation at a meeting and that he abstained from voting as vice chairman.
But here's the problem. In September 2022, the utility company complained to Shakibay that his air conditioning equipment had damaged the building envelope and said he had violated the rules by requiring the equipment to be removed within a week or face a $200 per week fine.
Since November 2022, Shakibay has been fined every week, and the amount of fines has increased rapidly over a year until the total reached $11,600 in December 2023.
Tribunal member Micah Carmody mentioned in the ruling that these fines had accumulated to this amount at the time of referral to the CRT arbitration and it was unclear whether they would continue to increase thereafter.
After adjudication, CRT found that Shakibayi's permit to install air conditioning was invalid because a quorum was not met at the then owners' committee meeting.
According to the regulations, the seven-member owners' committee must have at least four members present to make decisions, and that meeting, which only had the participation of the former chairman and the former manager, was clearly not in accordance with the regulations.
Nonetheless, CRT considered the fine imposed on Shakibay to be too harsh and ruled that he would only have to pay $2,600 instead of the original $11,600.
Kamodi cited a similar case in 2017 that provided that utility companies should stop collecting fines after the start of CRT proceedings. As a result, CRT reduced the amount of the fine in Shakibay.
In recent years, more and more households in Canada have begun to use heat pumps for heating and cooling, because heat pumps use electricity and are more efficient and environmentally friendly by transferring heat from indoor and outdoor air instead of generating it.
In a recent press release, the B.C. government noted that about 254,000 households across the province have installed heat pump equipment. However, the installation of such equipment in apartments is still subject to strict regulations.
Property management companies and owners' committees usually have a strict approval process for such alterations, provided that they protect the overall structure of the building and the interests of other residents.
Shakibayi had also filed a $15,000 damages claim against CRT and asked the court to stop the utility company from removing his air conditioning unit, but those requests were denied. At this time, neither Shakibay nor the property management company have commented further on the ruling.
So, no matter what new equipment you're going to install in your apartment, make sure you know the rules and regulations ahead of time to avoid costly time and money in the end.