When do we have to send meeting notice?

Two notices, and a different clock when owners requisition

Before the board can send a Notice of Meeting, section 45.1 of the Condominium Act, 1998 requires it to first send owners a Preliminary Notice. Section 47(1) sets the minimum lead time for each:

"(b) be given at least 15 days before the day of the meeting, if the notice is a notice of meeting of owners; (c) if the notice is a preliminary notice described in subsection 45.1 (1), be given at least 20 days before the subsequent notice of meeting of owners described in that subsection…"

Stack the two and a board-called meeting — an AGM under s. 45(2), a meeting called for any other business under s. 45(4), or a turn-over meeting — needs the Preliminary Notice out at least 35 days before the meeting date. Neither day count differs by meeting type; s. 47(1) applies the same 15 and 20 days across the board.

When owners requisition a meeting, the clock is a hard cap, not a notice period

Section 46 lets owners holding at least 15% of the units requisition a meeting. Once the board receives it, section 46(4)(b) requires the board to "call and hold a meeting of owners within 35 days." If the board doesn't, section 46(5) lets a requisitionist call the meeting themselves, and it "shall be held within 45 days of the day on which the meeting is called."

The 15-day and 20-day notice minimums in s. 47(1) still apply to a requisitioned meeting — nothing in the Act carves it out. We looked for a stated deadline for sending the Preliminary Notice itself — a specific number of days after the requisition arrives — in both the Act and O. Reg. 48/01, and found none. The Condominium Authority of Ontario recommends sending it within 5 days of receiving the requisition, but that's CAO's own guidance to boards, not a section of the Act — it appears on CAO's site without a citation, unlike the 15-day and 35-day figures next to it, which do trace to ss. 47(1)(b) and 46(4)(b).

Do the math on CAO's own number, though, and it's tighter than it looks: 5 days to send the Preliminary Notice, plus the mandatory 20-day gap before the Notice of Meeting, plus the mandatory 15-day gap before the meeting itself, comes to 40 days — five more than the 35-day cap the Act sets in s. 46(4)(b). Following CAO's 5-day guidance to the letter and then the statutory minimums to the letter can't both fit inside 35 days. A board that wants to actually hit the 35-day deadline has less runway than CAO's recommended practice implies.

Do by-laws change any of this?

We checked. The only by-law power over notice we found in s. 47 is in subsection (6) — a by-law can restrict giving notice by electronic communication, or set extra conditions for it. Nothing in ss. 45.1, 46 or 47 lets a by-law shorten or lengthen the 15-day, 20-day, 35-day or 45-day counts themselves. That's different from quorum, where a registered by-law can hold quorum at 25% throughout (s. 50(1.2)) — there's no equivalent override here.

Does the Preliminary Notice apply to every meeting?

Section 45.1(1) applies "before the board sends out a notice to call a meeting of owners" generally — it isn't limited to AGMs. We found no carve-out for a requisitioned or turn-over meeting.

We're holding an AGM — is that "board-called"?

Yes. An AGM is called by the board under the s. 45(2) baseline, so it follows the same 15/20-day notice minimums as any other board-called meeting.

Where does the 5-day figure for the Preliminary Notice come from, then?

The Condominium Authority of Ontario. Its guidance tells boards to send the Preliminary Notice within 5 days of receiving the requisition — but that line carries no Condominium Act section number on CAO's own page, unlike the 15-day and 35-day figures beside it. We checked ss. 45.1, 46 and 47 of the Act and the relevant parts of O. Reg. 48/01 directly and found no statutory day count for this step; the closest "5 days" figure actually in the Act (s. 47(3)) is an unrelated record-date rule about who counts as a recipient. Treat CAO's 5 days as recommended practice, and the 35-day meeting deadline as the one hard legal limit.

Is this legal advice?

No. It's general information based on the current legislation, verified against the sources linked above. The notice-period minimums are statutory, and we found no by-law power to vary them — but for anything contested, talk to a condominium lawyer.