An owner of a condo can choose to rent his residence to a tenant and the two of them will sign a housing lease to this end. The co-owner enjoys his property then by renting it to another person to collect renting revenue. However, the declaration of co-ownership aiming at the building can contain restrictions as far as the rights of the co-owners are concerned to keep one or two domestic animals inside its privative portions, which take the form of a regulation of a building governing the conditions of enjoyment of the privative portions by the co-owner according to article 1054 of the Civil code of Quebec (C.c.Q.)
The declaration of co-ownership binds the co-owners, their having cause and those who signed it and it takes effect towards them from the time of its registration under article 1062 of the C.c.Q.
Article 1057 C.c.Q. stipulates that the regulations of the building are opposable to the tenant or to the occupant of a privative portion, as soon as a specimen of the regulations or of the modifications which are made to it is given to him by the co-owner or, failing this, by the syndicate. Therefore, the tenant is held to respect the regulations of the building in the same way as the co-owner himself. However, it is possible that a tenant signs a lease with a co-owner, without a copy of the regulations of the building being given to him, and without the lease containing conditions in the same sense as the regulations of the building: the co-owner will omit to give a copy of the regulations of the building to the tenant at the time of the signature of the lease and will not possibly include either a condition to the lease with the effect that animals are prohibited, or allowed with certain restrictions, in particular as far as the type of animal is concerned, the number of animals allowed, as well as their size. On the other hand, the co-owner cannot grant more rights to the tenant than he has himself: if the regulations of the building prohibit animals, or impose a restriction as far as the maximum size of the animal is concerned, the tenant must respect it in the same way that the co-owner must do it.
When the tenant occupies the premises and does not respect the regulations of the building concerning animals, the syndicate can, after having warned the co-owner lessor, ask the cancellation of the lease of the privative portion when the non-execution of an obligation by the tenant causes serious prejudice to a co-owner or to another occupant of the building, and this under article 1079 of the C.c.Q. The Rental Board will thus be competent in such circumstances. However, what happens when there is absence of damage and just simply a non-observance of the regulations of the building, for example an un-harmful animal, but which will be of a higher weight than the one specified in the regulations of the building?
In our opinion, the syndicate will not be able to obtain the cancellation of the lease, but will be able rather to impose on the co-owner the sanctions envisaged by the declaration of co-ownership: application of the penal clause, when it exists, which personally imposes on the co-owner a monetary penalty as sanction when the tenant does not respect the declaration. When no monetary penalty is envisaged, the syndicate will have to address the Courts by means of an introductory request of authority in permanent injunction forcing the co-owner to respect the declaration of co-ownership.
The co-owner will be as much more at fault when he is held by the regulations of the building to give a copy of the regulations of the building to the tenant, and when he does not do it. It is here that we often find the core of the problem: if the co-owner signs a lease with a tenant without giving him a copy of the regulations of the building, and without reproducing in the lease conditions going substantially in the same direction as the regulations of the building (example: a clause in the lease prohibiting to keep a dog heavier than a given weight) the tenant will then suffer damage and a reduction in enjoyment of the rented premises if he must be separated from his animal. The tenant could even plead that he would not have signed the lease if the co-owner would have brought these conditions to his attention. What will then result surely is a litigation between the co-owner and his tenant, which could take the form of an action in damage and in reduction of the rent on behalf of the tenant, or possibly in cancellation of the lease.
Should the co-owner fail to give a copy of the regulations of the building to the tenant, the syndicate can do it in his place. Once the tenant is in possession of a copy of the regulations of the building, he will have to respect it for the future. The tenant will defend himself by saying that the former is not opposable to him because he did not know its content at the time of the signature of the lease, but this argument is probably not of any help to him because of the rule of the relative effect of contracts: the lease binds the tenant and the co-owner and does not concern in any way the syndicate of the co- owner, who for his part has the right to have respected his declaration of co-ownership at any time. The tenant will thus have to resort against the co-owner-lessor if he believes that he is suffering an injury because of the failure to give to him a copy of the regulations of the building.