MC010006

SUMMARY OF COMPLAINT: The complainant owned property in the Municipality of Bayham (the Municipality) and was allegedly in arrears of property taxes. The Municipality initiated formal proceedings to collect the arrears owing. The complainant claims that in December of 2000 she became aware that a Final Notice of Registration of Tax Arrears Certificate (final notice) and Tax Arrears Certificate - Document General (certificate) was sent to a law firm that had formerly acted for the complainant and her husband. The final notice and certificate (which I will refer to collectively as the "notice") contained information pertaining to the property, including the address, a legal description of the property, the assessment roll number and the amount allegedly owing in tax arrears. The notices do not contain the complainant's name. Upon further inquiry, the complainant discovered that the Municipality had sent out notices to 13 addressees. The addressees consisted of parties that the Municipality believed had an interest in the property including the complainant, the complainant's spouse, mortgagees, mortgage guarantors and various law firms. Of these, the complainant contends that only five had any interest in the identified property, and would thereby be entitled to receive such notices under section 11(1) of the Municipal Tax Sales Act (MTSA) . The complainant alleges that her personal information was inappropriately disclosed to the remaining eight addressees, contrary to the Act. Of the eight, six addressees were various law firms that have represented interested parties and the remaining two addressees consisted of a corporation that allegedly no longer had an interest in the property, and the law firm that represented them. The mediator and the Municipality corresponded on a number of occasions in regard to the complaint. It was acknowledged that the Municipality did in fact send the 13 notices alleged by the complainant. The Municipality had hired an outside consultant to handle its tax sales. This consultant sought and obtained a legal opinion in regard to the legality of sending the notices to persons other than those who have an interest in the property - namely solicitors who prepared documents registered on title. The Municipality indicated that the legal opinion advised that, although the Municipality is not required to do so, it would be a good practice to notify these other parties given that a common objection to property tax sales is the allegation of no notice being provided to the interested parties. Despite the legal opinion, the Municipality agreed that it would alter its policy, and would now send notices only to those who had an interest in the property. Notices would be sent to lawyers listed on the registered documents only if the interested parties' addresses were unknown. The Municipality's position in regard to the privacy complaint is threefold. Firstly, the Municipality contends that the information contained in the Notices does not meet the definition of "personal information" as set out in the Act . The Municipality claims that none of the notices contained the name of the complainant except those that contained the complainant's name as addressee (i.e. notices sent to her directly, or sent to her in "care of" a law firm). Therefore, the Municipality asserts that the information in the notices is information about the property. They claim the notices do not disclose a financial transaction involving the individual complainant since the individual's name did not appear in conjunction with the other personal information. Secondly, the Municipality claims that the information is generally available to the public for a fee. They rely on section 415(1) of the Municipal Act which states that the Municipal Treasurer is obligated "on demand" to give a written certified statement of the arrears due on any land to any person. The Municipality also notes that MTSA proceedings are open to the public. The Municipality asserts that there is nothing confidential about these records and that the records are truly available to the general public. Thirdly, it is the Municipality's position that the MTSA does not prohibit the sending of the Notices to the solicitors, and that it may, in fact, be a prudent practice. The Municipality claims that the Notices were sent to the solicitors in good faith to ensure that those parties with an interest in the property did in fact receive notice. It is the Municipality's agent's normal practice to conduct a search of title for the purpose of identifying all registered interests against title and then proceeds to issue Notices to all interested parties at every address, including their solicitor's address as shown in the most recent addition of the Ontario Lawyer's Phone Book. The Municipality's arguments raise the possible application of section 27 of the Act , which indicates that the privacy rules in Part II of the Act do not apply to informat