Owners are not allowed to defame board members and a defamation claim is a way condos can address bad owners. There have been a lot of articles about the limits on condominiums addressing bad owners and how they are more difficult to address than bad shareholders in cooperatives.  This is true, but there are ways that experienced counsel can employ.   Where a bad owner is defaming a board member, a defamation claim may be a useful way to proceed.  However, this course of action is tricky and has to be done in an experienced way or dismissal like the Board of Brightwater Towers Condominium’s case may result. The owner in that case was making all sorts of really obnoxious and bad statements but the Court that “[s]ome of the allegedly defamatory statements do not have a precise meaning, while others are hyperbolic and incapable of being proven true or false. The context of the statements was such that a reasonable reader would have concluded that he or she was reading an opinion, and not a fact, about the plaintiff.”  However, were the statements were such that a reasonable reader would conclude that the reader was reading a fact about the defamed party, you’re heading in the right direction. In the Brightwater case, the owner were spewing that the condo board “is corrupt, fakes financials, spies and eavesdrops on residents, charges unlawful and unjustified fee increases, and acts in a manner that will lead the condominium complex to financial ruin and bankruptcy.”  Those type of statements weren’t enough, but we’ve seen many a case where an owner makes very specific statements about board members and boards and in those instances, a defamation claim is definitely a viable option.  If an owner accuses a board member of committing a serious crime, such statement may result in something called defamation per se which means a huge problem for the accuser owner.

Here is the Brightwater decision.  Don’t make the same mistake as this condo board.