Barrister's Corner With Aaron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor

  www.aaronmilleryourlawyer.com ** The contents of this article are the sole property of A aron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor , and are not intended to be used without the express permission of Aaron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor. The contents of this article are not intended to provide legal advice or constitute a legal retainer.       As you are likely aware, the COVID pandemic has been really tough for commercial tenants across Ontario. Declining revenues have made it more and more difficult for commercial tenants to pay rent. For a lot of small to medium size businesses, a loss of revenues, and a recalculation of budgeting money, has been extremely difficult. Meanwhile, tenant businesses unfortunately, have been faced with situations where their commercial landlords have either refused to engage in rent reduction, or have only minimally decreased rent (sometimes deferring rent payments till a later date). Regardless of the scenario that a commercial tena...

www.aaronmilleryourlawyer.com ** The contents of this blog are the sole property of Aaron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor , and may not be reproduced without its express permission. The contents of this blog are not intended to provide legal advice or constitute a legal retainer. Here's something that many condo owners or tenants in Ontario have faced: what to do about the noisy neighbour? When it comes to a noisy neighbour in a condo complex, noise can often come from a variety of factors. Noise may derive from loud music, constant bickering between multiple people, TVs or sound speakers at abnormally high volumes and more. Although many condo residents can tolerate a certain degree of noise, there often comes a boiling point. Oftentimes, when this boiling point does happen, my experience as a condo lawyer often sees the condo board facing the brunt of resident complaints. This then begs the following question: can the condo board/corporation lawfully evict a "nois...

www.aaronmilleryourlawyer.com ** The contents of this article are the sole property of Aaron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor, and may not be used elsewhere without its permission. The contents reflect the author's opinion, and are not meant to convey legal advice or constitute a lawyer-client retainer. If you are a condo owner or a condo board member, you might b e familiar with the following terms: "Phase 1", "Phase 2", etc. To make it clear, this sort of language is often used to designate multiple condo corporations representing different segments of a condo building. In some cases, for a single building, there will be multiple condo corporations. Although "dividing the building up" into several condo corporations can be more practical when governing multiple units, certain snags may arise. This is particularly true when it comes to the collecting of monies for shared expenses. Oftentimes, examples of shared expenses can include the followi...

www.aaronmilleryourlawyer.com * The contents of this article are the sole and exclusive property of Aaron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor. The contents herein are an opinion of the author and does not constitute legal advice. In no way does this article constitute a legal retainer. Picture yourself in the following situation: You are a condo board member, and are seemingly aware that a condo owner is failing to pay their common expenses. These common expenses are the "lifeblood" of the condo building's existence. Without common expenses collected from condo owners, there is no way the condo will be able to pay for services such as security, landscaping, maintenance, projects and any other services the condo may need for the benefit of the owners at large. Knowing all of this, you continue to get more and more worried and make your thoughts known to other board members.  What would the knowledgeable condo board or board member do to rectify a non-paying condo ow...

www.aaronmilleryourlawyer.com ** The contents of this blog constitute an opinion of Aaron Miller, and are not intended to be legal advice or form a retainer. All content is the sole property of Aaron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor. Here's a fact: if there's one industry that's been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic, it's the construction industry. Considering how much construction there is in the City of Toronto or the Province of Ontario, ranging from individual homes to skyscrapers, you can bet the industry is on hard times. So what happens if you are a construction company, let's say a contractor or subcontractor, and the party you contracted with is not paying you? What happens if you are an owner of a home, office building, or other property, and due to the pandemic, you are unable to pay your contractors, subcontractors, and possibly even sub-subcontractors? As a fully licensed Real Estate lawyer in the Province of Ontario, which includes my Co...

www.aaronmilleryourlawyer.com ** The content of this article is the sole and exclusive property of Aaron Miller, Barrister & Solicitor. In no way does the content of this article represent a lawyer-client retainer, nor is the content representative of legal advice. While conducting a consultation with one of my commercial tenant clients the other day, a major initiative from both the provincial and federal governments came up: The impact of the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) program. To put it plainly, CECRA (officially introduced on April 16, 2020) was created to help the small-to-medium size business out. Primarily, the Ontario and Canadian governments have partnered to do one particularly important thing: Allow these businesses to pay their full (or close to full) rent. As you can imagine, COVID has just about affected everything. This includes, small-to-medium size businesses, who although might have been doing very well pre-COVID, are now often str...