Alterations & Legal Letters
Section 98 Alteration Dispute / Legal LetterA City-Approved Renovation Meets a Lawyer's Alteration Notice
A permit-approved basement renovation still triggered a legal memo alleging unauthorized changes to common elements. It raises the question of whether municipal approval is enough on its own.
An owner obtained a municipal building permit and completed renovation work required by the city to finalize it, including replacing a washroom exhaust and dryer vent pipe on the exterior basement wall. After the work was done, management sent a legal memo, through a law firm, alleging the owner had made unauthorized alterations to common elements.
The owner's question is worth generalizing: can a property manager or board disapprove of a change that a municipal inspector already approved? City permitting and a condo corporation's own alteration-approval process are two separate systems, and satisfying one doesn't automatically satisfy the other.
Documents an owner in this situation should gather
- The municipal permit and approved plans
- The legal memo received from management's law firm
- Any prior alteration request or approval correspondence with the corporation
- Photos of the completed work
- The corporation's bylaw or rule governing alterations to common elements
Questions to ask management or the board
- 1Does this specific change actually affect a common element or exclusive-use common element under the declaration?
- 2Did the corporation have its own approval process that needed to be followed independently of the city permit?
- 3Is the corporation requesting a Section 98 agreement, and if so, what would its maintenance and liability terms be?
- 4What resolution is being proposed short of further legal escalation?
Facing something like this?
Read the plain-language guidance for this exact situation, or run your own documents through the Free Notice Decoder.
Read the full guides
Curated and maintained by Alexander Baraz, Condo Owner Advocate.
This case is not a testimonial, review, or endorsement, and is not a Condo Owner Advocate client file. It is an anonymized, editorially rewritten educational illustration, not legal advice.