MacLeod (Re), 2008 CanLII 75208 (BC REC)

Sunridge Estates was never the same again after Al MacLeod moved in. It was a sign of things to come when he acted under false pretenses and engaged in professional misconduct to buy Unit 518 for $145,000.

$155,000 less $10,000 (which in my opinion he embezzled and then 6 years later manipulated the strata agent to launder the money.)


At about the same time, Al MacLeod acted to discredit my reports and disparage my reputation by calling the police alleging that I assaulted him, pulled his hair and kicked him, or attempted to pull his hair and kick him on May 9, 2008, saying that he had a witness, when he did not because I did no such thing.What I did do that may have been harmful to him was to record his nefarious actions.

I don't know if the strata agent that he manipulated quit, but Mr. Mac made vague references to having a conflict of interest and replaced the property management company with Teamwork (where his then girl friend worked as the bookkeeper) - an Abbotsford company that has been fined by the Real Estate Council for contravening ss. 27(2)(b) and 30(1)(g) of the Real Estate Services Act and ss. 7-5(1)(a), 7-5(1)(b), 7-5(3),  3-1(3)(a), 3-3(1)(a), 3-3(1)(d), 3-3(1)(f), 3-4, + 5-1(4)(f) of the Council Rules and  s. 95(2) of the Strata Property Act , re money.

 On December 5, 2008, the BC Real Estate Council reprimanded Mr. MacLeod and ordered him to pay them $750 in enforcement expenses for breaching ss. 31(1)(b) and 36 of the Real Estate Act when he purported to act as a limited dual agent in the March 2, 2002 contract purchasing Unit 518 from RH and SH.

 It is my understanding that lines 14, 15 and 19 in the "agreed statement of facts" that the council relied on are notably FALSE.

14.  Special levies, which exceeded $10,000, were assessed before the end date and, as such, Mr. MacLeod requested the sellers to honour same.(THE END DATE WAS MARCH 2, 2004, AND THE SPECIAL LEVIES WERE NOT UNTIL AUGUST 2004.)

15.  As the sellers refused to honour their contractual obligations, Mr. MacLeod commenced action to recover the cost of repairs to the building envelope in excess of $50,000, a sum which he believes is rightly due and owing. (IT WAS NOT THE SELLERS WHO REFUSED TO HONOUR THEIR CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS.)

19.     Mr. MacLeod believes that the sellers received fair market value for the property and noted that the sellers had previously listed the property on October 22, 2002 at $169,500 on MLS through another licensee, without any success.   (OCTOBER IS NOT PREVIOUS TO MARCH and what he believed about fair market value is evidenced in what he asked for when he sold.)

Mr. MacLeod abandoned this vexatious claim years before the Real Estate Council reprimanded him.

After Teamwork fired Sunridge Estates as a client to avoid wrestling with Al MacLeod, they were replaced by Carole Cafftery and Jolanta Teszka who the court found to  be unreliable witnesses guilty of gross negligence.

By May 4, 2016 Mr. Mac sold the unit for $525,000 (with a secretly added leaky and illegal skylight, but the same carpeting, and without the drapes) after wrecking enduring havoc throughout this strata complex for over a decade to create panoramic views and extra decks for the profit of a privileged minority such as himself - leaving a lasting legacy of staggering expense to others.

Mr Mac's Girlfriend

MARCH 10, 2010 - After asking for so long, I finally found out the nature and extent of the conflict of interest that Al MacLeod mentioned at the AGM with respect to his hiring Teamwork strata management before his term expired. It was his girlfriend. She was a bookkeeper at Teamwork.

Teamwork fired Sunridge Estates at the 2010 AGM, citing Mr Mac as the sole reason.I don't know if they had to fire his girlfriend as well, but she didn't seem to work there by the time they fired Sunridge Estates.

2011 - In Teamwork Property Management Ltd (Re), 2011 CanLII 28052 (BC REC), the Real Estate Concil's disciplinary proceedings for professional misconduct, exceeding its operating line of credit limit during January and February 2009 by approximately $5,000. Mr. Hensman submitted that Teamwork's bookkeeper was unaware of the importance of having funds in the account at the end of the month, and that he has now addressed this with her, stressing to her the importance of the transfers being done by the end of the month.

Real Estate Services Act Rule 9-3

At the 2010 AGM Dave Hensman, President of Teamwork Property Management Ltd., discussed Mr Mac's request to participate on council under Rule 9-3 of the Real Estate Services Act.

Mr. Hensman gave owners an explanation of how a member of council's opportunities to act in a conflict of interest respecting their own unit are multiplied when they are selling real estate within the complex, and how the costs of management increase in proportion to the increased risks of liability and time taken in trying to manage such conflicts.

A report at the AGM that in the last year 50% of all sales in the complex were transacted by Mr Mac as the listing or selling agent was truly alarming news. It shows that Mr Mac could have been acting as the agent for buyers, without the knowledge of the owners, during the whole period when about half of the complex's 68 strata lots sold in spite of the common property looking like a war zone during an obvious 3-year boycott of Mr. MacLeod as the listing agent.

With respect to Mr Mac's proposed "Participation Agreement" - from what I found on the internet - section 9-3 basically says that if Mr Mac discloses to the strata corporation his participation as a realtor strata lot owner in writing, then the rules, not the least of which is the duty to act honestly, with reasonable care and skill, do not apply to him, and the strata corporation is not entitled to the same protections applicable under the Real Estate Services Act to persons who deal with licensees who are not acting under section 9-3.

In response to the conflict issue Mr Mac said "you can't stop me from earning a living" once again demonstrating his long and successful experience in combining skillful exaggeration with partial suppression of the truth in confusing the real issues. He is so adept at the half-lie that it's dangerous. His full lies are easier to expose. He is evasive and full of misleading information.

When it comes to common property Mr Mac has no regard for mutually acceptable equitable sharing or procedural integrity. He recklessly destroyed common property leaving it looking like a war zone for years, exploiting the vulnerabilies owners and pressuring them until they were forced to pay for his special interest projects and extra decks for a 25% minority instead of trees and landscaping for everyone else.

Disclosure and conflict of interest issues were discussed at the 2010 AGM with reference to sections 31 and 32 of the Strata Property Act: Council member’s duty to act honestly and in good faith with a view to the best interests of the strata corporation; and to fully and promptly disclose the nature and extent of interests that could materially conflict with that duty and leave the meeting during discussion and voting.

Mr Mac has acted in a conflict of interest at the strata corporation’s expense without disclosure ever since he bought Unit 518 in 2002. His wrongful taking of our trees and diversion of strata funds, his deceptive dealing as to who got repairs and who didn’t, his advertising carefree living and landscape restoration while hiding latent defects and sabotaging the things advertised, his tampering with strata records and strata management, his endangerment of others by parking his van on the hair pin turn to post his signs, and a pattern of events that are in harmony with a preponderance of benefits to upper units, especially those outside of the complex such as his own, and detriments to lower units like ours, smacks of misconduct, both professional and otherwise.

It was not cited as an example at the AGM, but the more trouble exists in a strata corporation, the more propects for sales. Even when all of those owners who fled in the first 3 years after the building envelope project refused to give their listings to Mr Mac - it looks as if he may have been able to benefit nevertheless simply by involving himself at the buyers' end of the transaction - without the knowledge of owners. No wonder he suggested at the previous AGM that owners should "consider moving" instead of complaining.

Mr Mac's track record proves that he cannot be trusted to act honestly, in good faith. He has proven most definitely that he cannot be trusted not to contravene the law, no matter what law it is.

After knowing how important the trees in front of our unit were to us, he cut them down without a permit, geotechnical or otherwise, and without a vote by 75% of owners, or by anyone on council - and posted a blog advertising the unit above us for sale as having views with a vista that "includes Mt Baker, Mary Hill, Ranch Park, and Port Moody." Instead of disclosing the nature and extent of his interests and abstaining from voting or discussion on the matter, he acted alone, in disregard of the restrictive covenants and the law - after which underground pipes and pavement started breaking. With respect to honesty and good faith, he went so far as to tell me that he has a right to take actions against those who gave him a hard time.

Other deceptive dealings include deliberate misrepresentations about "worry free living" ... "landscaping contract starts in March (2006) for restoration of the common property" ... "money is already allocated for this project" ---- when "corrupt" was more accurate than "worry free" ... "destruction" more accurate than "restoration" ... and diverting money allocated for restoration of the landscaping to his own special interest projects was already underway.

The costs of the damage was so enormous that the amount of money left could not possibly restore the original standard of quality ... and the date of the landscaping was approximately 4 years later than advertised. Here it is, February 2010, and the dandelions at our front entrance are growing like gang busters - while we await reinstatement of the landscaping "in the spring" for the 4th year running.

With respect to our leaky condo litigation, it sounded to me at the 2010 AGM as if the strata lawyer, Stephen Hamilton, had said that the mediated offer to settle the dispute was rejected at the mediation table - leaving nothing for the owners to vote on at that bizarre 2009 "information" meeting when I heard Mr Mac say what sounded to me as if he definitely resigned from the team, in a manner much like his previous resignation after he placed himself in danger concerning trees and decks.

It has always been my feeling that Mr Mac's prolonged failure to respond to demands for disclosure in a timely manner created a needless adverse inference. The fact that a special general meeting was not held for the owners to vote on the mediated offer finally made sense if the offer had already been arbitrarily rejected at the mediation table. This would explain why Mr Hamilton said he thought "council" could vote on the matter - if the "matter" was to ratify the arbitrary act - or to claim damages from the party responsible. Council was in too much of a stupor to act, and just sat on their hands, as did the owners. The whole of the circumstances fit Mr Mac's pattern of drowning the facts in a sea of confusion and resigning following acts of misconduct which could get himself into potentially serious trouble.

The news of Rule 9-3 raises the issue of Council filing a complaint for the Real Estate Council to investigate, since it is the Real Estate Council's mandate to protect the public, and it is my understanding that individual owners do not have the required "standing" to complain, except maybe to the Real Estate Board, whose mission is to protect realtors. Instead all 3 people on Council approved Mr Mac's request, relieving him of a duty to act honestly, with reasonable care and skill, such that the strata corporation is no longer entitled to the same protections otherwise applicable.

They don't care about what Mr Mac did to me and probably don't care that he utilized the strata corporation and new strata managers in 2008 in order to get his hands on $10,000 belonging to Mr and Mrs Halford since 2004, money which the strata corporation had no business touching. In my opinion, Mr Mac's misconduct raises a cause of action against the strata corporation for more than $10,000 in damages to the Halfords, all in violation of Rule 9-3 of the Real Estate Services Act.

The whole thing, once again raises the issue of filing a criminal complaint with the RCMP and taking action to recover compensation for the millions of dollars of damage to the strata corporation, common property, and human life.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE

After having the same company for 16 years, from 1987 to 2003, - we will be on our 7th strata management company in a scant 6 years, from 2004 to 2010, - and about our 10th property manager since Mr Mac moved in here on March 15, 2002. I suspect that it is getting increasingly difficult and ever more costly to find property management for this troubled strata corporation.

The stigma that attaches to a neighbourhood of bullying and abuse, corruption and destruction is hard to shed. The economic loss is significant; but the human loss is permanent and irrepairable.

Strata Managers

Sunridge Estates had the same strata management for 16 years, until Mr Mac got involved. We had far more reasonable bylaws and access to records than since then. There were no shocking scandals, vandalism, assaults, or defamation. Minutes were understandable and made sense; they were provided to everyone and nobody was ever excluded.

The trees were beautiful and the ground was covered with low maintenance greenery. No patches of pavement all over the complex from broken underground pipes and water mains. No bare dirt between the driveways. No shameful destruction to try and hide behind an unsightly fence. The landscaping was like the street of dreams, and the curb appeal did us owners proud. Looking out windows was like looking into a park.

After Mr Mac got involved things went bad fast. Sunridge Estates changed strata management companies 5 times in 6 years, got countless strata managers, tortuously convoluted bylaws and minutes, damaged property values, perpetual added expenses; and our common assets and strata records were illegally destroyed.

It was not surprising that the strata corporation was at times unable to retain professional management anywhere within the local metropolitan or toll-free phoning areas.
Strata management became so perverse and fees so unreasonable as to effectively thwart the minimum protections provided by legislation. Laws provide owners with access rights to strata records at a cost of 25 cents a copy, but tax relief for home improvements intended for the benefit of owners was thwarted by strata managers arbitrarily imposing a $60 "special" service fee for each request, which effectively transfered the intended benefit of the Federal Home Reno Tax Credit program out of the pocket of owners, and into the pocket of strata management.

There is nothing I know of giving them the right to do that. Providing copies of receipts to owners is an obligation, which legislation makes mandatory, it is not a special service. If any special receipts were prepared from the strata records to submit to the Federal Home Reno Tax Credit program those receipts are strata records also. The fee for copies is payable to the strata corporation, not to the strata manager, and the strata corporation is GST exempt.

The strata manager's services are built into their contract with the strata corporation.
They should never be allowed to obstruct owners from accessing benefits provided by legislation. Multiplying the $60 per unit rate proposed by the strata manager by 68 units totals $4,080. At an average wage of $20 an hour that would cover 204 hours, or just over 5 weeks of full time work at 40 hours a week, simply to gather up the receipts and apply half a dozen unit entitlement formulas to the totals, formulas that any owner or member of council could calculate for everyone and share on a blog in about 20 minutes.

Council may negotiate addendums for special services if a motion to do so is made, seconded, and carried by a majority vote; but if not, added fees should not be payable by anyone. Council needs to remind strata managers that strata records, including receipts, are the strata corporation's property, not the strata manager's, and not members of council.

A practical cost effective way to meet the requirements for the Reno Tax Credit could have been easily implemented, but for corruption. If a fiduciary duty exists on the part of the strata manager and council to act in the best interest of the strata corporation, we would expect a reasonable council to report on something more suitable than $60 plus GST for each unit - unless they were in bed with the devil.

Nothing I know of gives either the strata manager, or the strata corporation, any right to charge owners for a "special" service to do something which legislation has made mandatory. In today's computer age, there is no legitimate reason why all strata records that must be produced are not electronically posted for free access by all owners. Failure to do so makes one wonder who is keeping secrets - and why.

*******************

Whether there is a secretary or not, the minutes of our strata meetings seem to be written by Mr Mac or whoever chairs the meeting. This is a major problem.  In general, allowing the same person to chair the meeting and write the minutes is a dangerous practice that puts far too much power in the hands of one person.

I have seen strata managers chairing the meetings, controling the agenda, making most of the decisions, witholding material factual data from council, professional advisors, and owners, claiming hearsay as expert evidence, illegally engaging in the practice of law without a licence, and writing the minutes. Duties of the strata secretary and votes by elected members of council have been preempted. Methods of transferring control involve everything from taking away jobs and bullying to special favours and flattery.
Meetings have been chaired in a manner which impedes owners and council from deliberating on issues and voting on motions; agendas and decisions are predetermined; it is not uncommon to find votes for little, if anything, except for rubber stamping the previous minutes and adjourning the meeting.

I have attended enough strata meetings to know that votes not in the minutes are usually votes that were never taken.

Decisions are persistently made and recorded without votes, making it impossible for owners to tell which decisions were made arbitrarily by the strata manager and which decisions were made, or at least discussed, by council. Strata managers have, in fact, no decision making rights. They muddy the records in a conflict of interest for their own convenience, creating constant opportunities to make quick and dirty decisions on issues that are not theirs to decide.

Whether it is about decks or tax relief, decisions are predetermined and made, directly or indirectly, by the strata manager acting outside their jurisdiction in administrative self-interest, in violation of their duty to act in good faith in the best interests of the strata corporation.

For years, issues raised in reports and correspondence have not been made known to council; unauthorized actions were not reported to council; and material factual data was withheld from the strata's professional advisors.

Too much of what should be decision making votes by council is simply announced by the chair as fact, or worse, not even disclosed, much less voted on, ratified, or recorded in the minutes. Minutes, particularly those written by Mr Mac, have been erroneous, biased and ambiguous - and worse.

*****************

On September 23, 2009, Coastal Insurance sets out the words TO INCLUDE PROPERTY MANAGERS AS ADDITIONAL NAMED INSUREDS in upper case lettering as a form of emphasis. Hopefully, owners will take this as a warning along with the fact that Directors and Officers Liability insurance was raised to $2,000,000.

As owners, we think we should be informed as to how much of the premiums we pay is for the Volunteer Accident Insurance Plan coverage of $100,000 and how much is for the Directors and Officers Liability coverage of $2,000,000. We would like to know how much we are really paying for this, instead of this information being buried the way it is.

Even ICBC's basic accident coverage is not less than $150,000 - so it seems like our volunteers are under protected at $100,000 - while strata management seem way over protected at $2,000,000. Comparing deductibles for strata management with deductibles for water damage is of also of interest.

I think owners should direct council to provide an explanation that justifies the extreme disparity and find out much the insurance premiums would be for the property managers portion, if it was not included in the strata corporation's insurance, because in reality, protection costs money and eliminating liability increases risk. I think it is important for all strata councils and owners to implement a bylaw requiring far more transparent accounting practices.

March 15, 2002 - The Turning Point

They say that it takes just one drop to poison a well.

Al MacLeod bought unit 518 on March 15, 2002. It was a devastating turning point for Sunridge Estates.

Since then Mr Mac has repeatedly involved himself in the strata corporation's affairs, directly and indirectly, in a manner that raises an apprehension of misconduct. This includes acting negligently without authority, diversion of funds, deliberate vandalism of trees, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of them, tampering with strata records, failure to reinstate strata plan decks and landscaping for years - creating horrendous risk of injury and pressure on owners - inciting changes detrimental to both owners and the strata corporation, creating added burdens of unfunded extra costs in perpetuity.

Mr Mac has acted in his own self-interest to the detriment of the strata corporation. Whether it was bypassing repairs of water damage to the structural elements of unit 409 while getting himself a new fireplace, or cutting down the trees claiming he had a right to take action against others; causing underground pipes and water mains to break and buildings sink rather than reinstate the trees before their roots decomposed, or exerting pressure to reconstuct unfunded illegally built extra decks for the benefit of a minority like himself, I attribute to Mr Mac losses estimated at over a million-dollars in damages to strata owners and the common property; past and future, direct and indirect.

**********************

Credibility

For a few years after the building envelope project was completed Mr Mac called strata owners ignorant many times at meetings. He acted as if he believed it to be true right from the start.

When Mr Mac first moved in and asked a meeting of owners how anyone could think that "as an experienced real estate professional" he would "knowingly" buy into a "leaky condo" he claimed to be "as shocked as anyone" and said we were "all in this together" .

That a realtor would stand up and publicly profess to being that stupid was bizarre enough not just to us - but to others as well - to be noteworthy. He sounded compelled to build evidence that he "didn't know" he was buying a leaky condo for some reason.

At the time we were unaware of Mr Mac's hidden agenda. We wondered what motivated him.

***********************

We didn't know he was acting to cheat the the former owner of unit 518 out of a holdback and bully them into paying for his share of the building envelope levy. We certainly didn't know of his intention to seize control of the whole strata corporation and transfer the extra costs for extra decks such as the one he had for his own exclusive use and benefit onto other owners, and worst of all, we didn't know he would deliberately take destructive action if anyone challenged his acting on council in his own self-interest.

We failed to recognize the fox in the henhouse.

We were, nevertheless, unconvinced that Mr Mac didn't realize that he was buying a leaky condo. At the time, our buildings had pretty much all of the architectural design characteristics of a leaky condo: flat roofs, false fronts, lack of overhangs, pointed windows, wood frame, face-sealed stucco. For a realtor to claim not knowing was beyond belief. We couldn't understand why an experienced professional would, without any sign of embarrassment or logic, be so willing to have others believe that he was foolish enough to disregard his due diligence obligations, the long established caveat of "let the buyer beware" and what was so plain to see just by looking with a resonably informed eye.

*****************

We didn't discover the truth about what Mr Mac knew until the former owners of unit 518 phoned us in 2005.

They asked us to send them a copy of the minutes containing the vote on the building envelope study. They told us they had lost track of them and the strata manager refused to provide a copy. They claimed Mr Mac bought unit 518 with full and complete disclosure of all of the known facts and Stratawest had recorded the owners' vote to have a building envelope study done in the minutes, which is why they wanted a copy. They said Mr Mac was suing them and demanding that they pay his share of the special levies.

It was all quite extraordinary and entirely contradictory to what Mr Mac had said at the meeting of owners. Nevertheless, I made a copy of the relevant minutes and mailed them off as requested. It seemed impossible to me that Mr Mac could not only fail to recognize leaky condo architecture, but also fail to read or understand the minutes and terms of the purchase agreement that he signed.

I did not believe that he could just forget all of that. So I decided to order documents from the Supreme Court and Land Title Office to find out for myself what was really going on. When it comes to false testimony and influence pedalling, it's fortunate that public records are public.

***********************

Mr Mac filed a statement of claim against the sellers of unit 518 in the Supreme Court which is just as revealing of the truth as the DNA on Monica Lewinsky's dress.

In his statement filed in court on March 31, 2005 Mr Mac admits that he signed a Contract of Purchase and Sale with an Addendum/Amendment clearly disclosing to him the strata's vote on February 4, 2002 to have a building envelope study done. It goes on to reveal that Mr Mac agreed with the sellers to a $10,000 hold-back to go toward any special levies "identified, levied, or due and payable before the end date" of March 1, 2004. The Addendum/Amendment to the contract that he signed shows clearly that Mr Mac also knew that "certain repairs may be required to the building envelope".

So much for him not knowing he was buying a leaky condo or being "as shocked as anyone".

Mr Mac's statement of claim contains absolutely no allegations of non-disclosure that would support "not knowing" and no breach of contract to justify transferring his financial obligations onto the sellers.

He claimed $59,478.82 - the entire levy - well beyond the agreed upon holdback amount of $10,000. The August 23, 2004 date for the special levy was well beyond the agreed upon end date of March 1, 2004 also .

**********

In my opinion Mr Mac's actions against the sellers were unconscionable attempts to add further to his own unjust enrichment at their expense. In his characteristic arrogance and attitude of divine entitlement, Mr Mac simply ignored the binding nature of the explicit terms of the contract he signed and applied to the court for an order that the sellers pay his share of the special levy.

He had no argument for setting aside the agreement that he had made with the sellers and signed his name to.

**************

The transfer form registered in the Land Title Office indicates that Mr Mac bought unit 518 for $155,000. The price he paid could, however, was $10,000 less than the price showing because of the holdback money he stole from the sellers.

If the sellers paid the special levy as he demanded, then Mr Mac's purchase price for unit 518 would be effectively lowered to $85,000. It would be an enormous steal of a deal. Literally a steal.

***********************

I was disgusted. Mr Mac had no cause, in fact or law, to take action against the sellers.

He obviously knew perfectly well that he was buying a leaky condo and had lied about it to Sunridge owners.

BUT IT GETS WORSE - MUCH WORSE!

It seems that Mr Mac commenced legal proceedings in a plot intended to either bully the sellers into paying his special levy, or to cause them enough trauma and vexation to at least allow him to steal their $10,000 holdback, which is exactly what he did. And he used the strata corporation to pull it off, placing us all at risk.

To see how he involved the strata corporation in his scheme CLICK ON THIS LINK:http://www.scribd.com/full/28339575?access_key=key-ag7oncf3r9s4gmsjbej

That link is to the 2008 letter and cheque from Mr Mac's notary to the strata corporation and payout instructions from the strata manager. The notary was supposed to holdback those funds until March 2004 in accordance with the contract of purchase and sale, but instead of releasing the money as required he held it back for 4 more years while Mr Mac fraudulently placed the strata corporation in a position where we could all be liable, along with the notary, for more than $10,000 in damages to the Halfords, in addition to legal costs.

The motion to obtain engineering studies to assess repair costs was not passed until February 12, 2004, and although the need for repairs had been confirmed the estimated cost was not known on March 1, 2004, and owners had not been given notice of any identifiable special levy. This tells me that the holdback should have been returned to the sellers in 2004, not held back for years and years and years and then paid to Mr Mac through the strata corporation.

Mr Mac paid the special levy to the strata corporation himself. His notary could not, and did not, pay the strata corporation for the special levy, either in accordance with the terms of Mr Mac's contract with the Halfords, or otherwise. Most importantly, it would have been inappropriate, if not impossible, for a levy to be charged by, or paid to, the strata corporation at any time before the owners voted on it in August 2004 and a decision to approve it had been made by the required 75%, all of which was well beyond the March 2004 end date for the holdback to be returned to the sellers.

Under no circumstances should Mr Mac's holdback scheme ever have been any of the strata's business, no more than contracts respecting the return of special levy funds to previous owners were ever any of the strata corporation's business;
I suspect that the reason Mr Mac made fraudulent claims to the owners about not knowing he was buying a leaky condo was an attempt to support his perverted efforts to get the sellers to pay his share of the special levy, and fraudulent claims to the notary about the dates of the special levy, and fraudulent claims to the strata corporation to cloud the issues and involve them in the payout 4 years later.

As bad as it seems, I don't know what else to think from the whole of the circumstances. After getting to know Mr Mac the truth about him did not surprise me. What surprised me was finding all this evidence against him in the public record.
How Mr Mac found a lawyer willing to file his statement of claim in court is hard to figure. Lawyers are supposed to be officers of the court, and those who prosecute causes which are intended to obtain unmerited settlements obviously devoid of any legitimate basis in law violate the rules of professional conduct. With such friviloous and vexatious lawsuits clogging up the legal system it's no wonder that it's been taking 5 or 6 months to enter a basic desk order these days.

***************

According to the 2009 AGM the strata corporation was to provide Mr Mac with a lawyer to go after me and my strata blogs. Right from the beginning, when my first blog was created in 2007, I asked the strata corporation to advise me of any errors in the content of any of my blogs, and I haven't been advised of any error so far. None at all. Nor did I hear from any lawyers about these blogs as threatened.

In contrast, the evidence that Mr Mac made fraudulent misrepresentations to the owners, knowing them to be untrue, is difficult to ignore - particularly by me, who  has been villified by him and defamed in the minutes, at meetings, and elsewhere - for years.

Owners should pay a lot more attention to WHO THEY ARE DEALING WITH.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good
It was a lot better for owners when Sunridge Estates had reasonable bylaws, understandable minutes, access to records, and the same strata management for 16 years. Prior to Al MacLeod there had been no shocking scandals; no assaults; no defamation, no thefts, and comparatively few problems.

The trees were beautiful. Our ground cover greenery was practically maintenance-free. Public views into ground floor windows were effectively screened with greenery. The slope was comparatively stable. No patches of pavement all over the complex from broken underground pipes and water mains.  My hammer bounced off our lower window like rubber, we felt secure, and we were happy.

Mr MacLeod was unquestionably gifted with some admirable talents. He demonstrated unusual skill in getting himself on the strata council and fundamentally entrenched in power with strata agents and others. It is too bad his efforts were not more ethical and better directed.

I remember talking to Mr Mac on the phone and being impressed with his people skills. I remember complimenting him on his powers of persuasion shortly after he moved here. When he arranged to come for a visit to learn about some history and look around our strata lot I was only too happy to show Mr Mac all through unit 409 and tell him all I knew. He seemed very interested in everything I told him and showed him.

For a brief period I thought Mr Mac seemed like manna from heaven. I was not the only one. Unfortunately, as we got to know him opinions changed, owners fled, selling in droves, new owners arrived, and a new cycle began. It's pretty scary.

**********************

The Bad

After Al MacLeod got involved things went bad fast.

Sunridge Estates suddenly had 5 different strata management companies in 6 years, tortuously convoluted bylaws and minutes, perpetual new expenses, common assets and strata records destroyed, and damaged property values.

A notorious reputation developed from drive-by traffic observing the havoc wrecked on the common property and embarrassingly unprofessional minutes circulating among realtors and prospective buyers, as well as an extraordinary turn-over of council, strata agents, and owners during these years. It was not surprising that the strata corporation was eventually unable to retain professional management anywhere within the local metropolitan phoning area and had to hire Mr Mac's people located in the City of Abbotsford, in spite of his stated conflict of interest and the strata management company's comparatively weak connections to local services.

At one time there were no side-deals, such as $60 "special" service fees to transfer benefits that legislators created for homeowners into the pockets of strata management. Strata management has now become so perverse, and fees so unreasonably padded, as to, in effect, thwart legislation. Laws that provide owners with requested strata records at a cost of 25 cents a copy are obstructed and tax relief for home improvements are sabotaged as strata managers charge unreasonable fees that thwart the rights of owners and their intended benefits.

Council would do well to remind strata managers that strata records, including receipts, are the strata corporation's property, nobody else's. Owners pay for the services included in the terms of the strata management contract, and as far as I know that includes providing copies of strata records. No terms of contract can properly conflict with access rights that are guaranteed by legislation.

So long as it meant travelling to Abbotsford it was, of course, difficult for council to tell the strata manager to step back while the strata volunteer copies receipts. Nevertheless, strata managers have no right to obstruct the access rights to strata records that legislation explicitly provides to strata owners the way that this strata manager has done.

I believe that with comparatively few votes from council Mr Mac, together with strata managers (most notably Joan MacDougall) was instrumental in orchestrating the course of the strata corporation, directly or indirectly, throughout the 7-year disaster surrounding the building envelope project, and beyond.

I wish I had no reason for criticism and I wish it was not necessary to blog about these things; but Mr Mac went far beyond council's jurisdiction; acting arbitrarily, intercepting correspondence and reports, falsifying records, cutting down trees, diverting funds, and wrecking havoc on lives, forcing people to flee at distress sale prices. Both before and after he was on council Mr Mac still sat in on meetings, like it or not; participating and giving direction; and the strata kept allowing him to act in handling our lawyers and affairs, proving that truth is stranger than fiction.

Mr. MacLeod invested tremendous effort in hidden agendas, lobbying and manipulating all kinds of strata agents, professionals, and city officials, giving direction, entrenching systemic legacies, communication barriers, artificial budgets, scandalous bylaws, problematic construction, and corrupt landscaping.

Our life here went from good, to bad, to ugly.

**********************

The Ugly

For years, Mr Mac never seemed to tire. Unfortunately his energy was spent destructively.

The first time he left council the common property lay in a shambles, looking like a war zone. After leaving office he used bully tactics to control who he would "allow" to serve on council. Mr Mac took all of the confidential strata records, which he had no right to as an ordinary owner; most likely to destroy every trace of evidence in his trail of misconduct that he possibly could.

Another time after that when he left council with the common property still looking like a war zone, Mr Mac planted seeds to ensure the problems we've had would be ongoing and systemic, sealing a contract with a new strata management company in the City of Abbotsford; a contract he claimed he should not enter into while still on council due to a conflict of interest. Mr Mac didn't disclose to the meeting the nature of the conflict he was referring to; but whatever it was, the new contract was sealed right before he left. It was like leaving a combat zone contaminated with land mines.

After observing the new strata manager influencing council by feeding them hearsay legal advice that ignored the issues surrounding our requested deck extension, I was unable to tolerate the stress of further meetings. After 7 years of misrepresentations, delays, and oppression the stress had reached the point that it was interfering with my employment, and I started blogging about it, hoping to inspire change.
 

*********************

 

 

The short-lived hero worship over Mr Mac that I had been initially developing was completely shattered in 2003 when I attended a council meeting at his place to get decisions on proposals that had disappeared without being brought before council.

Mr Mac turned the meeting into a filibuster leaving barely enough time for council to agree to publish the listed contents of my proposals in the minutes.

My list was not attached to the minutes as decided at the meeting. Instead Mr Mac prepared an unrelated list of his own, which was cryptic and nonsensical and attached to the minutes in a way that it could be construed as being mine. The content of my proposals vanished yet again. These disappearances matched the number of times a proposal was submitted. In fact, my proposals and their content continue disappearing more than six years later.
At any rate, by that point in time I realized that my pal Al was not the jolly good fellow that he made out to be.

I attempted to set the record straight by delivering my list of proposals as an addendum to the minutes. In doing so I unwittingly created a mortal enemy with endless retaliation, both direct and indirect for the next 7 years, and beyond; a truly terrible experience.

It was as if when Mr Mac had visited me he made a list of everything that I had told him I cared about - and then set out to ensure that at all costs every single thing I cared about would be spoiled - in the most permanent ways possible.

*******************

 

 

 

The owners and council have been aware of my strata blogs since I first created them in 2007, and very little, if anything, has ever been challenged. Given that the practice of strata management to keep owners "ignorant" of so much of what is actually going on and the ambiguous and contradictory communications to me, I wonder if it is their hope that, given enough rope, I'll hang myself.

It's a risk I must face as a result of the strata's prolonged and repeated failure to provide requested copies or access to requested strata records as required. Unintended error is an ongoing risk and each owner will have to assess the facts to the best of their ability the same as I have to. Having said that, if specific errors or omissions in factual data are made known to me, I will make my best effort to make corrections or in the case of disagreement to at least to tell the other side of the story.

My goal is to get the strata corporation to complete the promised repairs to our strata lot, reinstate the trees surrounding it, remedy significant inequities in the allocation of patio space and funds, and obey the law. So far, there is no evidence of any strata council taking remedial action. In the meantime, I keep working on my blog exposés for whatever it is worth in an attempt to change that.