Topics included in this webinar:
- Quarantine rules
- Access to the building and units
- Short term rentals and guest suites
- Collecting fees, special assessments, and liens
- Audit & budgets during the COVID-19 crisis
- Q&A
Download the presentation for this webinar
Transcript
Rod: Okay, well, good evening everybody. It's five o'clock and let's get started. Welcome to Condovirus Episode 2. This being the second episode, I'd like to call it the "Empire Strikes Back" episode. Before I get flooded with email I realize that the Empire Strikes Back is not the second episode, but if you were born when I was born, you saw the original broadcast, it is. It is the second episode. Welcome to the second webinar that we have on COVID-19 and the pandemic and the impact it has on condos out there. For those of you who are new today, joining us today for the first time, we have nearly twice as many attendees as we've had in the past. What we've done is we've struck together an industry wide crisis prevention cell, made of experts in various relevant fields, and I'll introduce them to you in a minute. Our objective is to try to share knowledge and is to try to share information to help condo corporations navigate through these difficult times. I'll introduce the panel in a minute. You'll recognize most of them. But I want to start by saying a few things. While we do our very best to provide you with accurate and timely information, the nature of the topic being covered as such, that the information is stale dated the minute that I've uttered the words. The situation changes on a minute by minute basis, sometimes. So do keep that in mind if you're going to watch this broadcast because we'll upload it on our website. Keep also in mind that with respect to the legal information we provide, it's really focused on Ontario. We have people from coast to coast right now, and you'll get very good information today, but when it comes to the legal information keep in mind that it's Ontario centric. Also keep in mind, please, that as good and as intelligent sounding as we may come across, the reality is that there's nothing like getting actual advice from your actual advisors. Whether that be lawyers, or auditors, or property managers or whoever it is, get information from these individuals to give you actual information that's applicable to your specific situation. Finally, and I know it sounds like a disclaimer, and it is a disclaimer because I'm a lawyer, l'm going to say this, keep in mind this is being recorded right now.
Okay, now. Let me introduce the panel. Then we'll move on. I'm going to go in no particular order here but I'm going to start maybe with Denise Lash from Condo Law. Good evening, Denise.
Denise: Good evening, Rod.
Rod: Good evening. Sandy Foulds, good evening.
Sandy: Good evening.
Rod: Nice. Okay. We have Graeme MacPherson from Gowling WLG.
Graeme: Hi everybody.
Rod: Okay. Then we have also, you know what? Let me show you the list. I already skipped a few of my jokes. This is a list of who we have online. I need you to do two things at once. Speak and control a power point presentation, so, Brain Antman. Are you there?
Brian: Yes, I am. Good evening.
Rod: Okay. Very good. Good evening. And then Sandy, we dealt with you. Katherine Gow. Are you there? Can we get a sound check from you Katherine?
Katherine: Nice to see you tonight everybody.
Rod: Thank you. And then we had Denise, Graeme, then we have David Plotkin from Gowling WLG, as well. Good evening, David.
David: Good evening everyone.
Rod: Okay. So, the last thing I wanted to say before we move on is that some of you are familiar with this but there's a channel, there's a chat channel that you can activate, and you can use that functionality. There's also a question and answer channel. We would really encourage you to use the chat channel, as opposed to the Q&A, because if you use the chat channel everybody else gets to see your questions and whatever we comment we put and whatever answer we give. Whereas if you send us a Q&A question using the Q&A channel, only we get to see and only you get to see the answer, if we ever get to that. Graeme is going to be monitoring the chat channel, mainly, Graeme and David and so if there's any sort of interesting questions or interesting suggestions we'll try to bring it up today. And so the first one is going to be a bit of an update. Let me start with this, with the update. On Monday both Quebec and Ontario, and other Provinces, but both Quebec and Ontario on Monday shut down every non-essential service. That came as a bit of a shock wave, initially, because in Ontario, certainly, when it was declared we didn't know what was going to be included in the essential services. For about 5 hours we weren't too sure. You have to understand that while the pandemic is affecting everybody in every sphere of society the reality is that it's affecting condominiums tremendously. In Ontario we have about 12,000 condominiums. These need to continue to operate. The need to continue to provide essential services to about 1.6 million Ontarians. These condo, of course, provide housing services but they also provide water, electricity, sewage services, garbage pick up, safety and security and so we were quite concerned as to what would be included in that. Many of these corporations, what they do have, is that they have also employees. They have concierge and superintendents and cleaners and managers on site. So it was very important for all us that these services be declared essential. I don't mean access to the LCBO essential kind of service. I actually mean essential services. These people are the very heart of providing safety and security for all owners. A couple of hours later Ontario did hit the nail right on the head. This is what it provides for and I can't read because I see peoples faces. I don't know if there is a way for me to hide that for a second. There it is. So as an essential service it includes services providing support and maintenance service to buildings, including urgent repairs, anything that's related to the safety, the security and the sanitation and the operations of a building, including property management. All of that is considered an essential service in Ontario. That's good news. If there wasn't enough pressure on your property managers out there, now you know you are essential, if there was any doubt before.
Let me start this. Now very briefly, I can turn to the panelists to give an update on the various bodies that regulate the industry. Let's start with the Condo Authority of Ontario. Is anybody giving us an update on this? David or Graeme?
Graeme: Yes, sure. l'm happy to. With respect to the CAO, the latest update from them is that they continue to try and implement their digital service model as much as they can. Their online resources and services are remaining active, including the free director training courses that they offer, online condo filing return system, their public registry and their guided steps to common issues and the Condominium Authority Tribunal. They continue to support the few remaining condo corporations who have not yet filed for 2020/2021 returns at the CAO. Although they state that legislative deadlines remain in effect they recognize the unique circumstances and are taking measures to support condos during this difficult time. In addition to the 25% assessment fee reduction that they've already implemented for the year, they are also indicating that they're suspending late fees for any condo returns until June 30, 2020, for now.
Rod: Okay. That's good news. David, can you provide an update on the Condo Authority Tribunal? Are you the one dealing with that?
David: Graeme could have grabbed that one as well.
Graeme: Yeah, I'll steal his thunder on that one too. The Condominium Authority Tribunal, or CAT, is remaining open and available and users can continue to file new applications and participate in active cases with them. What they're doing at this time, I think, managing on a case by case basis with the parties already involved in active cases and sort of putting it to the parties and deciding amongst themselves whether they want to put that case on hold for the time being or how they want to proceed. But for now, unless the parties agree otherwise on a case, it's business as usual for them. Which I suppose is the benefit of running an online tribunal.
Rod: Right. Very good. Katherine, do you want to give an update on ACMO's, and I think you have a few slides here for this.
Katherine: I do. Just a couple. Of course the ACMO office is closed so that all of our staff members can stay home and stay healthy and support the social distancing actions that have been recommended by public health. They are all working remotely and so are available to answer any questions. There are also posting, fast and furious, information about COVID social media posts that are good solid information that you can share with your communities. You'll find a great deal of excellent information that you can use to share within your communities there so I encourage you know all of that. It will be hosting a webinar as well. The other thing that we have been doing is advocating on behalf of the profession and managers. We have some concern, particularly if the closures last for a very long time, that it can negatively impact upon the ability of transitional general life ... in particular to accomplish all of their required educational ... We had also hoped that the CAO and CMRAO might take actions, not unlike Tarion, to defer some of the regulatory deadlines that we have and we hope to hear more on that in the future.
Rod: Okay. Make sure you stay close to your mic, Katherine. Sometimes it gets a bit weak but I think we go it. Sandy, you want to give us an update on CCI?
Sandy: Sure. CCI's continuing to educate members as relevant information is released. They begun compiling resources from industry experts on a broad range of topics including sample notices. This information is all available in the resource center of the National CCI web page. They've also begun work on submissions to various government departments for major condo concerns, including extensions of deadlines and risks related to condo fee deferrals, lien registrations and that type of thing, during these times of financial hardship.
Rod: Okay. Very good. Denise, can you update us on the CAI and also tell us what the acronym stands for to make sure that we distinguish ...
Denise: Yeah, thanks Rod. CAI Canada is a chapter of the International Organization of CAI which is the Community Association Institute. The reason that it's important right now to just let people know about this organization is because it's an international organization. I think what managers and directors may find helpful is going onto the international website, which is through the US, caionline.org. Community Association Institute, what you'll find there is information. A lot is in the US but its helpful to know how the US is dealing with this and we can apply a lot of what they're saying to our current situation.
Rod: Okay. Wonderful. And the last one, the Condo Directors Group. So we went from CAI, which is international to Condo Directors Group and that is mainly located in Ottawa, but it's basically a forum by and for condo directors. What's good about this one, if you go on their site, condodirectorsgroup.com, is that they are posting information from all sorts of other websites. There not sort of limiting themselves to whatever resources they have. You will get to see there all sorts of various blog posts from various legal bloggers. You'll get to see info from ACMO, from CCI, from CAI and that's a good source of information. Okay. Now, let's dive in and focus on real practical answers on some of the various questions that we face so far. Let me see if I can change the slide.
We're going to focus on quarantine and we're going to give you an update on that and on how that is applied in real life in various condominium corporations. I guess by way of introduction I'm going to say this is, while the governments are pushing, rightfully, pushing people back home to implement social distancing in public spaces, when you're pushing people back home, in condominiums it has a tremendously different impact than if you're pushing them back home in suburbia. So if you push people back home in suburbia, and everybody's in their single dwelling, that's one thing. In a condominium setting everybody is living on top of each other. Everybody is using the elevator highway. Everybody is transiting through the same common elements. That provides for a very distinct set of problems that need to be addressed. The issue that we see here is that while we're imposing social distancing in the public sphere we may be doing this sometimes at a detriment of social distancing required at home in condos. Think of the sudden spike in deliveries in condos. People are getting all sorts of things delivered home now; food and amenities and toilet paper and whatever it is that people need, now they get that delivered home. Think also of the fact that some residents at home they need to get their family members to come and help them or visit them or a nurse or a PSW. Think also of owners that wish to continue to do renovations and in their units. All of these are problems that you don't encounter in suburbia but we do encounter here. Let's dive in and let me maybe start by turning to Katherine about board meetings and all these owners meetings. What's the approach with respect to those? How are managers tackling this now?
Katherine: I think everybody in condo land has moved to online meetings in order to support social distancing. It's also a way for everybody to stay healthy through everything that's going to happen here. We mentioned last week if you do have somebody who insists on attending the boardroom, I've had managers set up the conference call in the boardrooms so that some, perhaps, they don't have the ability to do so in their home, they can attend in the boardroom, frankly by themselves, but at least they will be able to get their content. For annual and general meetings, I'm concerned that the ability to meet the intention of the meeting which is to have open discussions with homeowners and vote some things of that nature. Those are being deferred. It is an action that is supported by condominium lawyers and also by the CMRAO, at this time, and until those public health advisories have been lifted.
Rod: Okay. Keep close to your mic, Katherine. Sometimes we lose you a bit so and so I've turned your camera off just to make sure that we have better sound quality. Okay, very good. David, did you want to add anything from the legal front, I guess, maybe?
David: Sure. The legal front is mirroring a lot of the practical considerations the managers are having to deal with day to day. Especially with AGM's. Holding them now is almost impossible and certainly unadvisable. Trying to set up remote AGM's for everyone, not everyone has the same technical capabilities, not everyone is able to manage on Zoom as we all are. It's just very difficult to hold these meetings now and it's definitely advisable to push them off, if possible.
Rod: Alright. That's the approach I think that's being taken across the board; is to postpone meetings that are not absolutely essentially required. It's going to be touch and go for a little while. It may be that I think for the foreseeable future you don't want to hold AGM's, owners meetings, you don't want to circulate rules at this stage of the game because that may trigger a requisition that may lead to the requirement of having to hold a meeting. I think at this point in time it's best not. In fact, holding a meeting now, certainly in Ontario, would actually be contrary to the directives that are pushed down by the Province. Okay. How about if we switch gears because it's going to be rapid fire because we have a lot of topics to cover here. I'm going to ask maybe Sandy to talk about protective equipment, or protective measures, that are being put in place to protect employees and concierge and superintendents. What can you tell us about this, Sandy?
Sandy: Sure. So, under the Occupation Health and Safety Act we do have an obligation to keep all of our building staff safe. It's a priority for us all at this time of social and physical distancing. A necessary contact with occupants and visitors needs to be avoided. If an employee believes there is a condition that will endanger them in the building, they have every right to refuse to go to work. Removing unessential staff from your buildings, who can easily work remotely to do their job, should be considered. In person contact with an on site administrator, or sometimes a manager, is really not necessarily required. All resident contact can easily by done by email or telephone. Hopefully you have all data bases for easy email communication with your residents. Now, concierge desks in your lobby are a regular area for close contact. Some are now installing plexiglass shields, where possible, but this takes time to order and have installed. An easy quick option, that many are doing, is to mark out a 6 foot space on the floor with tape, just in front of the desk. Your personal space. Managers and superintendents, however, can still conduct inspections of buildings and common areas while limiting contact with other residents to ensure all your life safety systems continue to operate as they should. As this illness progresses, however, we will need to plan for reduced staffing in all aspects of our regular daily operations, particularly, for superintendents, cleaning staff, security and concierge services. Managers should be speaking with their companies responsible for these services to work on contingency plans.
Rod: Okay. Thank you very much. Denise, I'm going to turn to you now with this very specific question. How do we deal with infected units or returning snow birds? How do we deal with that? What kind of challenges have you encountered so far?
Denise: Well, you know, I don't have the easy answer. It's a very difficult issue. What we're seeing now are residents are coming forward and advising management if they've been in contact with someone with Coronavirus or they themselves have the Coronavirus. They are coming forward but they don't have to and, of course, management can't force residents to divulge that health information. We really don't know if there are people in buildings that have the Coronavirus. But the ones that are coming forward, what we are recommending is that notice goes out to residents advising them that either somebody has Coronavirus, or they've been in contact with someone who has Coronavirus, and they're in isolation. Just keep the owners informed. Everybody's in panic mode right now and you just want to calm everybody down, so you need to communicate that. What you don't want to do is give private and confidential information which is the name or the location of the unit. The other thing, and questions I've been getting, is about residents that have travelled and they are not going into isolation or they're not telling management. We're saying management doesn't need to know that information. That really is a public health issue. You can't be expected to know every resident that's travelled over the past 2 weeks and keep that information. Now, what do you do if an owner refuses to self-isolate? We've had this issue and corporations have tried to contact the police and the police, unfortunately, as of today's date, are not really doing anything about it. They'll do it on public property. They'll go to that person and perhaps there's something they can do with that person. But when it's on the common elements in a condominium they won't touch it. I've been told that, perhaps, if you go through public health that public health may authorize the police to enter onto the common elements and to do something about it. But as of today we don't have that mechanism. So what can you really do if you're concerned about the safety of your residents? We've got some mechanisms under 117 of the Condominium Act. We know that the courts are closed with respect to certain matters. If it's an urgent matter that can be done. I'm not sure how quickly you can bring a section 117 application, but I think if really bad, that there is a mechanism by which you can do that.
Rod: Right. Now one of the questions that came up on the chat line is in light of today's Federal announcement dealing with implementing mandatory quarantine, and so on, how does that impact a manager's obligations or duties? And at the end of the day the difficulty we have is that owners are entitled to move about in the common elements. That's also part of their property. We need to balance privacy and we also need to balance safety. The reality's that condos are not equipped to implement quarantine and they don't have the powers to do that. So I think what I take away from what you presented, Denise, is two things. Balancing privacy with safety, providing accurate information and verified information to help people take steps to protect themselves. If you know that someone in unit 306 is a known person to be infected, you're not going to disclose that, necessarily, but you absolutely want to make sure that people in the corporation know that there's such an issue. That there is such a risk. Not just a vague risk or be careful, generally speaking, and wash your hands. But an actual risk. In my view if you don't convey that information your exposing the corporation to some liability. I guess the second thing I got from what you've indicated, Denise, is that when all fails the tools that the corporations have, maybe to rely on section 117, which is the provision dealing with dangerous activities. If there's an individual that's causing, or behaving in such a way that it's causing a dangerous situation for the rest of the condo corp, I guess that's when you'd be able to potentially go to court. Keeping in mind that right now going to court is challenging. They're down to skeleton sort of staff.
Denise: Right. I just want to also mention that you're going to have to be careful because notice is going to all the residents, you want to make sure that you're information is verified. There's a rumor that somebody in suite 302 has the Coronavirus you don't send out notice. I think that's obvious. But I just want to remind everybody. Get confirmation from that individual themselves.
Rod: Okay. I see more questions coming in but they're being covered a bit later so let's switch gears and let's now deal with closing of amenities. There's all sorts of amenities in condo corps; fitness rooms and party rooms and gyms and pools and saunas and whatnot, Sandy, how do managers tackle this on the ground right now? What do you do with your amenities?
Sandy: Alright. So as we discussed last week, all of those amenities should now be indefinitely closed. Your corporation board members and managers are obligated to take reasonable steps to mitigate potential risks. Cleaners must now concentrate on cleaning high traffic areas repeatedly throughout the day, including door knobs, handrails and elevator buttons. Not the amenity rooms. Owners also need to do their part because it is really impossible for your cleaners to have those surfaces perfectly sanitized 24 hours a day. It is impossible. You need to wash your hands after touching every public surface. Carry hand sanitizer. Carry wipes with you. Those are options. Guest suites in your buildings also need to be closed. It's not a time to allow guests into the building for extended periods. Common area washrooms should also be closed to all except employees who have no other facilities available to them while they're working on site. Laundry rooms. Now this one is a hot topic and you will need to address this with input from your solicitors. But the general comments are that considerations for residents in self-isolation, or diagnosed with COVID-19, should be completely prohibited from using these facilities. However, healthy residents will need to do laundry during the period of social distancing. So perhaps limit the number of residents permitted to be in the laundry at any time or disconnect some of the machines to provide for social distancing.
Rod: By that, the example you gave, I guess was every second one or every third one.
Sandy: Exactly.
Rod: Just to put that space between individuals. If every second one is disconnected well obviously you have more space. Okay. Go. Sorry I interrupted you. Go on.
Sandy: No worries. Some corporations have been receiving special requests as well. To use amenities for owners with disabilities. These issues need to be addressed on a case by case basis in consultation with your solicitor. Don't try and handle that one yourself. We've seen a few chats go through asking about owners who want refunds for not being able to use their amenities. Legal opinions are consistent on this one. Refunds are not required. You do not have to give anyone a refund for this.
Rod: Okay. And, Denise, maybe from the legal perspective on that, on accommodating disability and on whether or not we need to reimburse common expenses. What can you tell us?
Denise: Well, I think Sandy is spot on there. Nobody's reimbursing any common expenses right now. In terms of accommodating someone with a disability we have been asked these kinds of questions. They are sort of one off requests for things like access to the gym because someone needs it for their disability. We have the Human Rights Code and it still applies and it does impose an obligation to accommodate that individual, but, these are difficult times and how do you do that? Just because they want access to the gym doesn't mean you have to provide access to the gym. But what you should not do is really deny the request, outright. You really want to work with that resident and see how you can accommodate them. It may be that there's something like exercise bands that you can put in the unit that they can do. What you need to do is sort of brainstorm with that particular resident. Come out with a resolution. If you need to ask for further medical information you can. But at this point we're saying try to work with the resident and do your best to see what other alternatives can be made.
Rod: Right. Right. Sandy talked about guest suites. Denise, from Lash Condo Law, can you tell us a bit about short term rentals and how to do deal with those?
Denise: Oh. Okay. Well, that's also another interesting one. A lot of corporations do allow short term rentals. Right now notices are going out, most of our clients are doing that, stating that as of today's date, short term rentals are prohibited. That doesn't mean that you kick people out that are there right now. Let them stay in. But advise the residents that no new bookings. This is really consistent with what they're doing in the US, short term rentals, and there's also timeshares. Same prohibition. Of course the basis for doing that is section 117 of the Condominium Act, if anyone has an issue with it. What we have found to be really concerned about is that short term rental providers were using this as an opportunity to get people that are self-isolating, even people with Coronavirus, to go into short term rentals. You can have your units, your building, for that purpose, for the hospital. It's really careful and important I think there's a real strong basis for prohibiting short term rentals.
Rod: I think so. Katherine, I'm going to turn to you now with respect to access to units. At times access to units, or to suites, are required. Either to do some common work or to respond to an emergency, a flood, a water escape, whatnot. What do we do now in the current circumstances? How can we deal?
Katherine: I believe really firmly that you're going to only be entering suites when you have an emergency. By an emergency I mean a flood, fire or a risk to human life. Where is that absent I hope you're deferring that kind of work. That's for the protection of your staff and the contractors and for your residents. When you do absolutely have to enter into the suites, everybody will be using what they call universal protections. That's social distancing of 2 meters and that's hand washing before and after you enter into the suites. One of the things that we talked about is, goodness forbid, you do have somebody that you know is self-isolating, self-monitoring or has tested positive and you have a water leak. That's the thing that happens most often. What are you going to do? I would recommend, again, you're going to try to mitigate the damage. The next slide, which popped up there for a second, is a slide that shows some of the common isolation valves that are found in suites. It wouldn't be a bad idea, if you haven't done so already, to circulate this type of information to your homeowners, so they know what they're looking for, and ask them to identify where they have their shut offs in their unit. It's a good practice all the time. It does mean that you might be able to walk somebody through it over the phone, in a worst case scenario. The other options are, and it's the type of thing that seasoned building operators, superintendents and property managers know, is that you can isolate water from a higher source above, further down the pathway, riser wised source, if that's what you need to do as well. The intention being to ensure that your staff members and the contractors are safe while they're still attending to an emergency. The other thing that plumbers tell me, "Katherine, I have my hands in dirty drains and toilets all day long. So I'm pretty good at some of the self-isolation. There are some of things that I would need to do to sanitize. I'm concerned also about resident health." So in a community transmission circumstance, what we're trying to prevent is close contact so that we don't get transmissions.
Rod: Mmhmm. What about asking the owners to retire in one of their bedrooms while someone goes in to do some of the work? Is that a precaution that you've dealt with? Is that one that you implement?
Katherine: Absolutely. In so it's to get as much distance as possible, particularly because we don't know for certain if somebody is positive or ... positive. And that way, both for safety of the resident as well as for the contractor, and for any security officers who would be attending with them as well. So you try to give everybody as much distance as possible when you're doing a suite entry these days.
Rod: Okay. Thank you very much. Anybody else wants to add anything to this one before we move on? So nobody. Okay, that's great. Let's move on then. The next topic we want to tackle is work in suites. We have people that are not self-quarantine, they have to isolate for up to 14 days and maybe a bit longer than that, and soon enough they'll get bored of each other and maybe the decor, and so some of them either want to do some work in their units or they want to complete work in their units. Some of them had commenced work in their units. To allow this work to continue the issue, or the challenge, will be this is that you get contractors that are transiting through the common elements and they can be elevator highways again. There's just that many more people interacting with each other. So how do we tackle that and what can we do about that? I'm going to first give a bit of background on how Quebec and Ontario have approached that. In Quebec they've defined, in the construction industry, they've defined essential services as being limited to construction work that is required for safety and security purposes. If you need to go in, if you need to repair something, in Quebec that's an essential service so that's not being shut down. In Ontario, the language is far more generous, and in fact they're not limiting as essential services work that's required for an emergency. In fact, in Ontario if you have a hammer, well, that's it. Now you're considered essential services. That may create some challenges for condo corps, as I said, because some people want to continue with their work. Katherine, what can you tell us about that? How do you approach this?
Katherine: I think, unfortunately, you have to do so a bit on a one by one and case by case basis. Majority of my properties have already notified homeowners that they won't be approving of any renovation plans or proposals during this time and until such time as the emergency has lifted. Those that are ongoing, the property managers then directed to get in touch with the homeowner and find out at what stage they are in and if they're in a stage where they can safely stop the project and forestall it for a period of time. That is for everybody's safety. Where that can't take place, for a variety of reasons, in terms of where they are in the project and maybe need to move in to that newly renovated space, the property manager has met, reviewed with the crews that are working in this space, all of it, get virtual protections that ought to be carried out and gotten them to affirm that they are healthy and that they will notify if they have any concerns that the property manager should be made aware of.
Rod: Okay. We go back and forth between the slides because the order of the presentation has changed. Don't worry. I know that somebody's wondering about the move in's and move out's. We're going to talk about that in a minute. Don't worry. Denise, did you have anything to add with respect to that?
Denise: Yeah, I think Katherine did such a great job, but I thought it would be useful to give you an example of a situation because I just had it yesterday. It's quite amazing I'm getting these questions. We have an owner who started the renovations. They're 60% complete. They're living in another condo unit in the building which they have to move out of May 1st. So, what do you do? Do you allow them to complete their renovations? And Katherine really said it all. Should they finish the rest of the renovations or not? Is it essential for them to do that in order to move into the unit? Those are the questions that you have to ask. How long will the rest of the renovations take? We don't know if a week from now there'll be some further order that may change the essential service category. Right now, we're saying it may be that you go ahead and you authorize that owner to complete it, depending on how long, and also what's important is the protocol. The entry and exit, the owners should make sure that they ask the right questions to their contractors, that they follow the public health guidelines, because everybody needs to be kept safe.
Rod: Right. In fact, many corporations may already have the tools required to deal with this. Many corporations have either, as part of their rules or in cases as part of their declaration, some language that allows a corporation some level of description over what kind of work can be done, when can the work be done, how can the work be done. We've advised some of our corporations, recently, on that very specific question. We pulled, in that case it was in the declaration, and the declaration provided that any and all work in units had to be approved by the corporation and that the work had to proceed pursuant to whatever conditions, and terms were imposed by the corporation. In such a case it's easy for the corporation to say well, now is not the time and we're not going to authorize this kind of work. Also, if you don't have that language, you may be able to turn to a higher level of authority. You may be able to look at your municipality, the public health officer of your municipality, may have pushed down some directives. An example, if you're in Ottawa, the directive is that a non-essential work in multi-residential buildings is not to take place now. Have a look at your city. Have a look at your Province. Are they providing any sort of directions which allows you to prevent, or delay, or control or monitor the kind of work that will take place. Again, it's not to make people's lives difficult. We are trying to preserve the greater good and the security and the health of many individuals. So unfortunately, that sometimes requires some individual sacrifices. The reality's been decades since Canadians have been asked to put the collective interest before their own personal interests. It's been decades. Probably since the second World War. It's going to take some getting used to for all of us, I'm sure.
Let's see here, where we're at. Anything else? I think we've covered pretty much everything about the kind of work to be done. Let's talk about move in's and move out's and let's talk about deliveries. Sandy, are you the one tackling this?
Sandy: I've got deliveries, yes.
Rod: I'll volun-tell Graeme to deal with move in, or something. Go ahead, Sandy, with deliveries.
Sandy: Alright. So at this stage, to protect your staff, only essential deliveries should be permitted at this time to your buildings, which includes food and health care products. Residents should be discouraged from a lot of the regular parcel deliveries that are coming into your buildings. They're really not needed at this time. Many delivery companies will no longer deliver beyond the entrance of the building, to protect their own staff. So you building does need to establish policies on how to deal with deliveries. Your security and concierge staff really do need to remain in their lobby areas to protect your building. Unless you have many staff members available. At which time, sure, one of your staff members can be running around the building, dropping off deliveries in front of your residents doors. But if you have limited staffing available, or in some cases, no staff at all which is often the case in a lot of the high rises that are not in downtown Toronto, you've got a few issues that you need to deal with. Of course, healthy residents can definitely can come down to the lobby to get their deliveries. That's not a problem but if you have self-isolating residents, or residents who are confirmed COVID-19 patients, an option is to consider having neighbour to neighbour programs set up in your building where you've got a group of healthy, essentially bored residents who volunteer to deliver items around to other units, and just leave them outside of the unit door. That is a good way of keeping people who are isolating in their units where they should be. These isolating residents also should not be going down to the lobby to pick up their mail. Not the time to be wandering around the building. These policies, the board needs to clearly, and repeatedly, explain these to the residents. By email, by notices, however it's best to be done in your buildings, but the owners need to be reminded.
Katherine: I think it's a great ..., Sandy and I also believe, as mama always told us, you get more flies with sugar than with vinegar. Sometimes if you have a resident that you're concerned about, who isn't self-isolating, to try to reach out to them and offer some assistance and drive them towards that volunteer who is doing deliveries, or some other resource. In Toronto, specifically, there's a company who's taken on to do deliveries, particularly for elderly, self-isolated people, and their folks are garbed up so they can be safe. I think that's a great practice. In terms of what I might recommend for volunteers, for the people who are graciously taking deliveries, taking garbage, running errands, I don't know that the special precautions, so to speak, are any different from what their telling everybody and that's very frequent hand washing and that's lots of social distancing. So where we would never allow somebody to leave something in the hallway, or leave garbage in the hallway, if you've got a specific schedule so you can facilitate that kind of social distancing with some volunteers, I do believe that that would be a better practice than having them go into the suite and share the same air space. I think that might be a good way to manage that kind of a situation in a longer term.
Sandy: Yup.
Rod: Okay. I saw you react a bit, Graeme MacPherson from Gowling WLG. Do you have anything to add to that, with respect to deliveries and with respect maybe to, go ahead.
Graeme: With respect to deliveries I agree completely with what Sandy said. I think there's kind of two schools of thought on how to best do it. I mean, is the best way to have deliveries brought all the way to units and dropped off at the door? Or does it make sense to have owners come down and pick them up at the front door of the building? Obviously that's going to be subject to what the delivery person is willing to do. But I tend to, I think, lean, and I'm no epidemiologist so take this for what it's worth. I tend to lean towards trying to remind owners, gently and frequently, that the best policy is probably to have the meals or deliveries brought to owners units to prevent multiple owners from congregating in the lobby at the same time and prevent just too much use of the common elements, which we should all be trying to limit as much as we can.
Rod: Of course the challenge, Graeme, with this is whether or not the corporation has the resources to offer that service. Okay, you were going to add something, maybe on volunteer groups? Is that what were you were going?
Graeme: Well, yeah. Just with respect to volunteer groups. I mean, I tend to think that it's probably the best practice for the corporation to leave this as something for neighbours and unit owners to do amongst themselves. But if the corporation does want to get involved and does want to play a role on this, it may be something worth looking into to have waivers in place. Just because that's the world we live in, and if the corporation's going to be taking on a leadership role, it just wants to make sure it's adequately protected.
Rod: Okay. Katherine, can you cover move ins and move outs? I think it was you were the one covering that, I think.
Katherine: Yeah. It's a popular topic and Denise and I, when we were talking in our plenary session, we were talking about the fact that you certainly won't be able to prevent somebody from moving into a home, especially when they don't have another home to live in. In some ways I think sanitizing the elevator after a move is easier than sanitizing it all day long. Right? It goes on surface for the move, it's on a planned and scheduled time and location and you've got some control over those types of items. The other things that they do have now are some sanitation products that live on afterwards to keep things clean, afterwards. The question of whether or not sanitizing units, I guess, comes from my condominium background where the unit is a long term ... it belongs to the homeowner. So, would I be taking any action at all in terms of sanitizing a unit? I wouldn't. That's because it isn't the condominium corporation's responsibility, perhaps in my view, to look after the sanitation of the suite itself.
Rod: Okay. You raised the question of elevators and I saw Sandy react here. Do you have elevator protocols in place? How do you help people navigate through these troubled waters?
Katherine: I'll start and Sandy, maybe you can jump in as well.
Sandy: Sure.
Katherine: There's a lot of questions in the forum about social distancing in the elevator which can be challenging, especially if you're in a very large condominium. To get a meter between each person in the elevator can be challenging, although it is recommended. Some of the things that my managers have been sharing with me are really neat ideas recommending toothpicks, or Q-tips, to press the elevator buttons instead of using fingers. That is of course because disinfecting wipes and things like that are becoming fewer and far between. That's something, until recently, until this webinar, Q-tips and toothpicks were really easy to come by. It's just something that they're starting to stock, themselves, so that they can have them available and this may be a good idea. Sanitation products. There are lots of new ideas around. Fogging machines, all kinds of sanitation programs that managers might want to look into with their boards. I'd be more prone to use a product that survives on a surface and there are several of them. If you're using a fog machine, or something that has the same lifespan as a disinfecting wipe, I don't know that you're doing anything different or better. And the cost, I think I know, is more substantial.
Rod: Okay. Sandy, anything to add to that, or?
Sandy: Just that residents really should take turns and wait for an empty elevator before them and their family get in. Don't jump into an elevator that already has 3 or 4 people in it because that's totally defeating the our social distancing principals.
Katherine: At the end of the day, as much as possible, it's staying home to stay healthy. As you said, Rod, it's difficult for us to get our heads around. We've never had this kind of a request for restrictions on our freedoms and our ability to go wherever and do whatever. But it is what's necessary and it's mostly not for me that I would be doing that. It is mostly for people who are aging and it's folks need to preserve capacity in our health care system.
Rod: Right. Right. Now we're getting far more questions than we can handle on the Q&A and I see that Graeme and David are trying their best to answer some of these questions. Some of them are yet to come, our answers, so we're sort of ignoring those. Some of them were covered last time but we're going to do our best to see how many of these Q&A's we can answer. This is very, very relevant questions being asked. But we're sort of running out of time here, unfortunately. Let me move on to the next topic.
The next block of topic is all about budgets and finances and you've probably been wondering why we have Brian on the line and he hasn't said a word yet. This is where we need your expertise, Brian. Help us navigate through these difficult financial times. I'm expecting increase expenses for corporations and I'm also expecting owners to find themselves in a very difficult financial situation. Some may lose their jobs. Some may be laid off temporarily. How do we deal with all of this? The reality is a corporation needs to continue to operate. So, can you help us, Brian?
Brian: Sure. The first thing I'm going to touch on is there's been, in the last little while, a lot of discussion about increased costs, people deferring their fees and, as a result, perhaps corporations having to revise their budget. At the outset a budget is set, really at the beginning of the every physical period, based on information from the property managers, based on actual historical results and what costs are anticipated in the future. Boards have to be cautious that their obligations to maintain the common elements are met but a board does have the authority to change a budget mid-stream. I would suggest that there's very specific circumstances that I would recommend that to be done. For example, there may be some corporations that have a large accumulated surplus or a contingency fund. Basically what the revised budget would do would reflect, perhaps a deferral or reduction in monthly fees, consider increasing certain expenditures in light of the pandemic, and essentially creating a deficit in the current year. You have to remember, however, corporations are going to be faced with higher costs in this situation. We're all hearing about cleaners coming in and doing special cleaning. Perhaps additional security being hired. All of these things have to be considered when a budget's being revised.
One of the largest costs in a condo is utilities. We just heard today, as Rod said, things are changing by the minute. That the government is providing some relief to all homeowners related to billing rates in Ontario. But will that be enough? The problem is that if there is some government relief, and payments are deferred, how do utility providers provide us the services that we need in order to have electricity, for example. Will the governments be giving them any additional relief. If you are considering revising your budget one of the things you should look at, perhaps, is what variable costs can be deferred, bearing in mind that you don't want to affect the marketability or the health and safety of the owners there. This is just an ongoing problem. Another issue is will vendors, perhaps, give you some deferral of payments so that you can reduce your costs. If you are revising your budget, one of the things you have to remember is that corporations, on a periodic basis have to now issue what's called a PIC. If a budget is being revised you have to issue a new PIC and also send out the new budget to all owners. So there's some additional costs related to that. We are, as everybody has realized
Rod: Let me just jump in there, Brian, just for our listeners. The PIC being the Periodic Information Certificate, which is mainly a reality in Ontario, but those need to go out at least twice a year or if there's a change, which is what you're talking about. I just wanted to spell out the acronym, for the Periodic Information Certificate. Go on.
Brian: No problem. Okay. Sort of the last piece of this is that there's circumstances, not in these times, in normal times people have to realize that expenses do come in greater than budget and create a deficit in the year. Those are all things that have to be considered if a corporation's thinking of adopting a new budget.
Rod: Okay. Very good. Denise, there's been a lot of talk about maintenance fee holidays or deferral agreements, can you shed some light on those?
Denise: Yeah. It's definitely something that I do not recommend. I think one of the issues is that there was an article in the Toronto Star, and it was a specific condominium that I'm aware of, that had the ability to defer a month common expense. But really all it was, was a payment plan for the owners, if they chose to opt into that, to make payments over the next several months for April common expense payment. But what that did is got everybody talking about deferring common expenses. I really think that it is way too premature; that by doing so it could have severe repercussions. If you heard Brian talk about, we don't know what the budgets will say at the end of the year. What you don't want to do now is start to fine common expenses. We have to remember that prior to this whole COVID-19 outbreak we have been dealing, and I know management, Sandy and Katherine, you know that sometimes you make accommodations for specific owners. You can do that either after or before the lien is registered. You want to maintain your priority and your security of your common expenses but you make accommodations. You make payment plans and you do that on a one off basis. That's exactly how I think you should do it. You need to keep the cash flow going here. That is so important especially during these times. Let's just wait a couple of months, see how things go. There are other options and I think Katherine's going to talk about this. There may be savings for unit owners that could help them pay their maintenance fees.
Katherine: There are a few things that happen, and not specifically, that will impact on homeowners. We don't know the details of them because the announcements have been made so recently. The big 6 banks have talked about mortgage deferrals, and that is something that folks apply for, and there's also some short term loans that can help folks bridge the gap. Most recent announcement in Ontario is set to do with electricity. It was much touted. It was much welcomed and of course got us into details that may be the devil in this particular circumstance. One of the things that we have to look at is the fact that the discounted rate, announced 10.1 cents per kilowatt hour, only applies to time of use going. There are plenty of condominiums who have bulk bills and they are not time of use bills. Time of use bill, of course, is three different price points during the day. The 31.8% Ontario Energy Rebate does still apply. That is wonderful. This announced change in rate is for the duration of the order which at present is expected to be about 45 days, but of course that can be altered. There is no application that's required. If you're one of the people who will be able to take advantage of this kind of a rebate, discount, it will show up automatically on your bill. depending on your cycle it might not come on the most recent bill. It might come on the next one. But it will be credited. The next question is, of course, what happens with sub-metered unit? If it is billed by the utility on time of use you will automatically, again, receive that rebate. If you're re-billed by one of the sub-metering companies, and there are a number of them, the way that bill will be treated is dependent upon what a bulk meter looks like. That may or may not be something that you know but if you take a look at your bill, your last one, it will show you what your rates are and you'll be able to tell from that, whether you have time of use or whether you have ... perhaps in bulk metering is the residential price protection plan, RPP. RPP does not apply for this program. The other one that doesn't apply to this program is the HOEP plus GA. Which is the Hourly Ontario Energy Price plus local adjustment, which means a change in rate that is based on the actual cost of producing hydro. There was, of course, a mini budget or a fiscal update that the Government of Ontario released this afternoon, literally at 4 o'clock, so not really enough time for us to digest. If there were any specific measures that might apply to condominiums in that announcement, frankly, we weren't anticipating any that we would like to see some. The one item that has already been announced, and it is only specific to condominium corporations that have employees, there is a deferral that some of some of your remittances in consideration of your employee/employer remittance values that you can apply for. There's also a deferral of the HT, employer health tax. But again, that would apply only to condominium corporations that have their in house staff, not contracted staff members. I echo very much the sentiments of Brian and Denise. My concern is that were getting a really big, really hard knee jerk reaction. To worry, as opposed to reality, of what some of the financial impacts are going to be ... I'm hopeful that they will be able to take advantage of the funding that is available to support people with childcare concerns right now. People might be laid off, extended EI benefits, mortgage deferrals. The reason why I believe all of this programs are in place is because the day to day bills have to be paid. The problem with the condominium corporation is it's all day to day to bills. The second problem, and I really do feel for boards because it's a terribly difficult position to be in, there's no process, like at the bank for lending money. Frankly, you're not entitled to lend money. Your job is to collect the money and use it for the day to day operations and the major repair and replacement of the corporation and its assets. It is a duty and a covenant that you have to all of the neighbours that your supporting under the ... I'm most concerned that what we're doing is kicking the can down the street and we're making a really bad, a really crippling choice that's going to have long term financial implications. I also don't think there's an immediate need to take a look at this. I'm hoping that, again, we'll have a better opportunity to evaluate if we take a look in time.
Rod: Okay. Thank you very much.
Brian: Just to summarize a couple of points. Unless there really is some government relief owners are still obligated to pay their fees and it doesn't stop even, as we've discussed, if certain common areas or share facilities are closed, corporations still have obligations on a day to day basis, like Katherine said, to meet all their bills and any of these type of fee holidays or deferral programs are just going to cause serious cashflow problems for the corporations. Corporations do still have the ability, lien, if things aren't paid we're going to get into that a little bit later. Those are my other comments in this area here.
Rod: Okay. Something we haven't spoken about yet is a corporation's ability to borrow. David Plotkin from Gowling WLG, some comments on that?
David: Yes. For sure. This is come up in questions quite a bit now because with all of these emergency measures that corporations are dealing with, there's a lot of question, okay, how are we going to pay for these things. One of the ..., let's say, of this time is that borrowing rates are quite low. With all of that in mind it's extremely unadvisable right now for corporations to be borrowing for anything that has not already been set aside in its budget. It's actually prohibited under the Condominium Act. Look at section 363. It's very clearly stated that a corporation shall not borrow money for expenditures not listed in the budget unless it passes a bylaw. As we know, passing a bylaw requires a calling a meeting, it requires a 50% plus 1 vote on that and just the inability to call that meeting is in of itself a reason not to go down the bylaw route. As all of the things that we've been hearing from Brian, be extremely careful with the use of funds now where the source of funds is coming from, one, it's already been earmarked for and not creating new headaches for the corporation ... down the road.
Rod: Okay.
Brian: Just adding to that, I mean, we're talking about borrowing and budgets and stuff, in our portfolio we do see some corporations that have established contingency funds. Those are set aside for unusual expenditures or expenditures that don't qualify for reserve funds. This is probably a perfect time, if there is any contingency funds available and corporations are starting to run short on cash, to start using those contingency funds. You don't need a borrowing bylaw to think of using any of your reserve funds. It's really a good opportunity if they have those funds available.
Rod: On the question of the reserve funds, Denise Lash, what can you tell us about whether or not it's advisable, or permissible, to delay a condo corp's contribution to its reserve fund.
Denise: Okay. But before we get there I just want to comment on the borrowing bylaw. Because there may be instances in which corporations already have the authority to borrow. We want to caution people now; we're not recommending that corporations borrow money. Even if you have the authority under your bylaw. Let's move on to reserve funds. A lot of questions and a lot of scary comments about corporations wanting to use their reserve fund to fund their operating expenses, or possible shortfalls, or doing it on a temporary basis. I got a call this afternoon, from Stephen Chesney, I also discussed this with Brian, and I think they're both in agreement that common expenses in the budget allocate a certain portion towards the reserve fund. That reserve fund portion should be allocated to the reserve fund. Allocating it to operating budget is going to pose a whole host of problems. You're going to have a shortfall on your reserve fund. If you want to change your reserve fund contributions then you need to do a new reserve fund plan. But not taking that money that's allocated for a reserve fund and putting it in the operating account.
Rod: Okay.
Brian: Agreed.
Rod: Very useful. I guess another question, let's change topics very slightly, it's totally related, how do we ensure our contractors are being paid and, specifically, I'm wondering what's the protocol to be followed when issuing a cheque, when signing a cheque? I know in many cases condo corps have a signature from management and the signature from the board. Has that changed, Sandy, in any way shape or form?
Sandy: Well, not yet. But there are concerns with that. If you're management company signs both portions of the cheque, not a problem. All your condo payments will continue. But right now, if board members are signing cheques, things are that much slower getting things to buildings right now. Couriers are working slower. We need to start thinking about alternatives, even just for the short term. Sending GL's out to the board so they can review what the payments are going to be made and then they can authorize the management company to sign both portions of the cheque. Things to think about as this progresses.
Rod: Okay. I think it's important to do things properly. It's important for the board to continue to have it's oversight, fulfill it's oversight duties and be well aware of what cheques are being signed. I think it's additional work, maybe, for management but you want to send all the documentation to ensure that it's very clear what's being signed, what's being paid. You may also want to hold a board meeting, remotely if required, just sort of approve this new method of dealing with these ongoing expenses. You want this to be properly minuteded. What have we changed in our approach and for how long and what sort of safety precautions do we put in place to ensure that all the money's accounted for and that everybody stays in their lane and do what they need to do. Brian, did you have anything to add?
Brian: I mean all of those things you're talking about are best practices that should be done. It's even more important now that internal controls are maintained. So, I would never recommend that management, on it's own, sign cheques. There's lots of ways to ensure that authorizations are kept in place, that approvals are made, so that cheques can be sent out on a timely basis. One of the things corporations can start considering, though is perhaps implementing some for of electronic payments, as opposed to cash, just something to consider.
Rod: Okay. The last topic, I guess, with respect to financial question, because we're running out of time here. I guess we'll have to reconvene next week. But I want to talk about liens and collection processes. There was a flurry of activity on social media in the last couple of days. This is because on Friday, in Ontario, an order in council was issued. Basically suspending limitation periods and suspending deadlines for procedural steps to be taken in proceedings. There was a lot of questions around that. Whether or not that suspended the timeframe that corporations have to register a lien. As most of you know, in Ontario, the lien must be registered within 3 months of when the default first occurred. So if somebody skips January you have to register your lien before the third month anniversary. If you don't register your lien by then, the lien expires. Or may be stated otherwise. Whenever you do register your lien it will only cover the prior 3 months. So you need to register your lien within the third month of that first default. If you do register your lien in time, you have a priority over mortgage lenders and so on. That's the basic premise. If, for whatever reason, you consider not registering the lien, you risk losing the priority. When you do register a lien, eventually, you may have lost a couple of months. So the discussion that took place with respect to the order in council was has that been suspended? Will we be able to register a lien much later on? There's probably two schools of thoughts out there but I think the consensus is that if there's any doubt in your mind, register the lien? Why would you take that chance? Why would you postpone registering the lien and then have a fight with a mortgage lender, down the line? The reality is that the situation is not going to get better for these owners who are unable to pay right now. Whenever a situation gets back to normal, eventually, their credit cards may be maxed out, they may have skipped some payments with respect to their mortgage. Our recommendation, it's our strong recommendation, is do register your liens, in time. You don't need to be overly proactive about it but certainly before the third month anniversary. Then it's up to you to see how proactively you want to try to collect on that but at the very least you'll have placed your priority on title and you'll have priority over the encumbrances such as the mortgage lender. Denise, from Lash Condo Law, anything to add to that?
Denise: Yeah. I just want to add because we have to remember that management companies have management agreements. Their management agreements require that they take steps to preserve those arrears within 3 months. So if someone's telling a manager to wait for 6 months because they think the order applies, there's going to be an issue. Because it would be in breach of the management agreement. I agree that let's just stick to the 3 months for now. There's no reason to extend beyond that.
Rod: Okay. A question that keeps coming up, and it's because we skipped it inadvertently, is what do we do with open houses? The chat room is ringing off it's hook. Denise, anything to say about that, about open houses?
Denise: Yeah. It's interesting. I was surprised to see that it's real estate agents and all business is considered an essential service. Which means that showings can still occur. But protocol has to be established. So open houses. I think that we can take the position, sometimes it's the condo docs already, prohibiting open houses. But if it's not, still take the position that it is prohibited. You're not doing anything to hinder the sale but you're just not permitting an open house. There are a lot of agents now that are doing virtual showings. That's fine and then they can have purchasers come and view the unit, one by one, and they should be setting their own protocols to make sure that social distancing is maintained. You cannot stop these sales but steps can be taken to prohibit the open houses.
Rod: Okay. So, it's been an hour and 15 minutes. We're in overtime right now. I'm going to go around the table one last time but in the meantime, Graeme, if you see any sort of very pressing question, a repeated question, maybe when we get to you you can put it to the panel. In the meantime, I'm going to do one last round around the table and I'm going to start with you, Brian Antman, from Adams & Miles LLP, any sort of parting words, words of wisdom?
Brian: I guess boards just have to be cautious in implementing any of the things we're talking about today. You want to consider all the consequences, speak to your professional advisors, and I guess the bottom line for me is we don't want to compromise the financial health of these corporations. They have to continue to be viable entities.
Rod: Okay. Very good. Sandy Foulds, from Wilson Blanchard Management, any parting words of wisdom?
Sandy: Sure. Yup. Everyone has a role to play in flattening the curve right now. Your property management companies will continue to work with you to accomplish these goals. Boards and management should be taking reasonable steps to mitigate risk to staff and residents in these uncertain times. The underlying principal is physical distancing to stop the spread. Please respect the guidelines, respect your neighbours and be kind to each other. We will get through this if we remain calm and use common sense and wash your hands.
Rod: Nice. Katherine Gow, words of wisdom from ACMO?
Katherine: I echo all of those sentiments. Be kind, be patient, be thoughtful. Lots of boards want to push us up against a precipice and then make an emergency decision. I think we're all best served if we use a lot of thought. Take careful consideration of what the longer term impacts are going to be. We have the breathing space to be able to have those conversations and to put that effort into our planning.
Rod: Okay. Thank you. Denise Lash, from Lash Condo Law, and also on behalf of the Community Association Institute (Canada), any words of wisdom?
Denise: Well, I just want to calm everybody done. I mean, residents are living in fear. There is a lot of hysteria and I think what management has been doing, which they're doing an excellent job, is communicating to residents. They're communication is clear. Let's calm everybody done. Let's follow public health guidelines and let's try to continue maintaining our operations like we always have been.
Rod: Okay. Thank you. David Plotkin, from Gowling WLG.
David: For sure. Continuing on the being reasonable theme, for lawyers this is always a big thing. When we're looking back in time and someone comes to use down the road, and this issue happened, we always want to see who is reasonable and who wasn't. So continue to have your policies in place and continue, management and boards, to paper any issues that come up because some of these things will need to be dealt with afterwards and continue to be reasonable so that we can show any reviewing corp, afterwards, that we all tried to do our best in the situation that we're currently facing.
Rod: Okay. Graeme MacPherson, aka Luke Skywalker, from Gowling WLG. Any words of wisdom?
Graeme: Yeah. I think I'll tag on to what Denise said, in terms of people are scared right now and there's a bit of hysteria. So, I think on a more human element just remember, during this time, if you know anyone who lives alone or who may be just needing you to reach out right now, now is a good time to do it. Stay connected to people as best as we can while doing our part to flatten the curve.
Rod: Okay. Thank you so much. I've put up on the screen, I don't know if we've lost it because I've lost it here, put up on the screen a screen print of condo advisor blog. I want to attract your attention to the top right. There's a new tab. A webinar tab. That's where we're going to keep posting next webinars. You'll have to register again. You would find there the topics, the speakers and you would find there the registration form. Go and visit that regularly. Well, as regularly as you want to, if you want to see what's next but I think looking at all the questions that came on the Q&A and on the chat channel, we're going to be again, together, in a week from now. Same place, same channel, same people, same time, at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1st. If in the meantime there's any sort of pressing topics, or topics you'd like us to cover, by al means we encourage you to send us emails. But as I said, if you want information about the webinars, that's were you get it and that's were you register. I'd like to thank everybody. I'd like to thank the panelists, for sure, for their leadership and for being so generous with their knowledge and their advice. I'd like to thank all of you at home who have stuck around until now. It's been an hour and 20 minutes. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to try to educate yourself, try to get information that will help you keep all your corporations operating safely and that will help you keep your community healthy and safe. So that's it. I'm Rod Escayola from Gowling WLG. I'm wishing you well. Be safe, stay healthy and be good to one another. Thank you very much. Good night, everybody.
Brian: Thanks.
All Good night.
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