As Ottawa grapples with the long-term impacts of climate change and extreme weather events, property owners living on or near a floodplain will need advice on what to do and where to turn to for support. This blog does not provide all of the answers, but it is designed to give readers guidance if you own land on or near a flood prone area.
In The Guarantee Company of North America v. Royal Bank of Canada, 2019 ONCA 9 the Court of Appeal held that the statutory trust created by s.8 of the Construction Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.30 (the CA) is a trust that falls within s. 67(1) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B.3 (the BIA), and, therefore the subject matter of the trust was not property of the bankrupt divisible amongst their creditors.
"Tax legislation equips the government with very powerful tools to ensure that taxes are properly paid. One of those tools is the deemed trust... In this action, the Crown seeks to recover money that [TD Bank] received from one of its customers in payment of a loan secured by a mortgage. The Crown asserts that the customer failed to remit GST amounts that he had collected, thus bringing the deemed trust into operation... I am allowing the Crown's claim. The legislation imposes an obligation on the Bank to repay the money it received from its customer and it necessarily excludes the defence of bona fide purchaser for value. Even if this result appears harsh, it was clearly contemplated by Parliament."
See: Her Majesty the Queen v. The Toronto-Dominion Bank, 2018 FC 538
This is the first blog of a new series entitled "Tips for the New Entrepreneur" aimed at providing a New Entrepreneur with practical tips and pointers for exploring legal issues when setting up and growing a new business in Ontario. These blogs may also provide, for your convenience, key official sources of reference.
You may have seen the phrase "this offer shall be irrevocable by" on your Agreement of Purchase and Sale during a real estate transaction in Ontario. This phrase usually contains a specific date and time and states "after which time, if not accepted, this offer shall be null and void and the deposit returned to the buyer without interest."
This phrase is often standard on Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) forms, it can play an important role in the finalization of any real estate deal and it directly impacts the ability of the offeror to cancel the offer.
The Employment Standards Act ("ESA") in Ontario provides employees with various minimum entitlements under the law. Among the most significant are those dealing with employee entitlements at the time of termination. We often hear the term 'severance pay' applied to the payout upon termination, but under the ESA, there is both notice pay under Section 57 and severance pay under Section 64, both of which can be triggered at termination.
Every day businesses engage with other businesses for the provision of services. Typically, the service-provider will issue multiple invoices throughout the duration of the contract. Sometimes, however, not all of the invoices get paid.
When is it too late to sue for unpaid debt owing on the invoices? This question was explored by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newman Bros Ltd v Universal Resources Recovery Inc, 2018 ONSC 4019. The simple answer is 2 years from the last payment made.
We've all seen variations of parental waivers for children's activities before. Parents are often asked to sign these prior to sending their kids off to sports camp, summer camp, and other activities that may involve the potential for physical injuries. In fact, waiver forms can often pop up in the news every now and then due to their usage in a variety of unusual situations, such as the time they were required for participation in a children's Easter-egg hunt.
Last week, we took a brief look at condominium corporations, the declarations that they can make and how they are governed in Ontario. Once the turn-over meeting has occurred and the newly elected board of directors is in place, the first year of a condominium corporation will see a lot of changes and key decisions made. In Part 2 of our blog series we will take a look at some of the protections and key processes that are in place for condominium owners during this period.
According to Statistics Canada, new condo construction has been the dominant form of residential construction in Canada since 2012. While most people think of condominiums as a type of building, they are first and foremost a system of ownership. In this system, condo corporations are the legal entity at the center and are regulated by the the Condominium Act, 1998, S.O. 1998, c. 19 (the "Act"), which came into force on May 5, 2001. A recent review of this Act has also brought into existence the Condominium Authority of Ontario, an organization aimed at providing educational info for condo owners and also to provide a dispute resolution service. 
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