Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Whether 192 condominium units held in fee simple could be assessed collectively as one income-producing apartment property rather than as individually assessed condominium units.
• Interaction between The Cities Act “market valuation standard” (including fee simple valuation, mass appraisal, equity and comparability) and The Condominium Property Act, 1993 requirement for separate assessment of each unit.
• Significance of fee simple title and a single blanket mortgage over all units, and whether those business/financing choices can change the legally mandated assessment unit.
• Proper comparators for assessment purposes: individually titled condominiums versus multi-unit apartment buildings held under a single title.
• Whether the Assessment Appeals Committee reasonably concluded that the Board of Revision erred in ordering an income-based, low-rise apartment model contrary to the statutory scheme.
• The extent to which prior Saskatchewan Municipal Board precedents (PR Investments and Prince Albert) could be relied on where they did not squarely address fee simple valuation and CPA-specific provisions.

Facts of the case

Mainstreet Equity Corp. owned 192 individual residential condominium units in six low-rise buildings at 906 Duchess Street, Saskatoon. Each unit had its own title, and together they were operated in practice as a single rental apartment complex. Historically, the property had been a single parcel operated as a rental property and was later converted into 192 separate condominium units, but the operational use remained as a unified multi-residential rental project. Mainstreet purchased all 192 units in 2016 and continued to run them as a rental complex, financing the acquisition through a single mortgage of $22,150,494.31 registered against all of the condominium units as security.
For the 2023 taxation year, the City of Saskatoon assessed each condominium unit individually, matching the stratified titles. Using the single-family residential sales comparison method, the assessor estimated market value for each unit by reference to sales of other individual condominium units throughout Saskatoon. The resulting total assessment for the 192 units was $27,734,700. If the City had instead used the multi-family low-rise apartment income model, the total assessed value would have been lower by just over $10.5 million, at $17,072,600. Mainstreet challenged the individual-unit assessments to the City’s Board of Revision.

Board and Committee decisions

Before the Board of Revision, Mainstreet argued that, in substance, the property functioned as a low-rise apartment complex with one owner, one mortgage, and a single integrated operation. On that footing, Mainstreet contended that the low-rise apartment income model, not the single-family condominium sales comparison approach, should govern. The Board accepted Mainstreet’s position. It reasoned that because 906 Duchess Street was owned and mortgaged as one multi-residential enterprise and was operated as an apartment complex, the City should have applied the low-rise apartment model income approach. The Board therefore overturned the City’s 2023 individual condominium assessments and revised the total assessed value down to $17,072,600, effectively treating the 192 units as one income-producing apartment property.
The City appealed to the Assessment Appeals Committee of the Saskatchewan Municipal Board. The Committee allowed the City’s appeal and restored the original assessments. It held that the legislative scheme, taken from The Cities Act and The Condominium Property Act, 1993 (CPA), required each condominium unit to be assessed separately and in its fee simple form, regardless of how the owner chose to finance or use the property. The Committee concluded that the Board of Revision erred in law when it changed the method of valuation to the low-rise apartment income model and ordered an assessment that did not conform to the statutory “market valuation standard”. The Committee also found that the Board erred in mixed fact and law by ordering a different assessment methodology without a demonstrated violation of equity with similar properties. It emphasized s. 163(f.1) of The Cities Act, which defines the “market valuation standard” as an assessed value prepared using mass appraisal, estimating the market value of the estate in fee simple, reflecting typical market conditions for similar properties, and meeting quality assurance standards. According to the Committee, these requirements, read together with the CPA, compelled individual assessments of each unit.
In particular, the Committee pointed to s. 5(2) CPA, which states that every title issued under that Act is for an estate in fee simple in the condominium unit, and s. 93(2) CPA, which provides that a separate assessment must be made of each condominium unit notwithstanding any other assessing legislation. It further relied on s. 165 of The Cities Act, which provides that an assessment “shall be prepared for each property in the city using only mass appraisal” and that equity is the dominant and controlling factor, achieved by applying the market valuation standard so that assessments bear a fair and just proportion to the market value of similar properties. The Committee concluded that “similar properties” for these purposes were other condominium units, not apartment buildings with one title, and that the City’s individual-unit mass appraisal approach using over 2,000 validated condominium sales maintained both fee simple valuation and equity. It distinguished two prior Saskatchewan Municipal Board decisions (PR Investments and Prince Albert) on the basis that they did not turn on the fee simple requirement or the CPA’s mandatory separate-assessment provisions.

Statutory framework and policy concepts

The appellate reasons focus on the interplay of two statutes. Under The Condominium Property Act, 1993, s. 5(2) requires every condominium title to be for an estate in fee simple in the unit to which the title refers, and s. 93(2) mandates that, notwithstanding any other assessing legislation, a separate assessment must be made of each condominium unit (other than designated parking units). These provisions fix the legal nature of condominium interests as distinct fee simple estates that must be separately assessed.
The Cities Act supplies the assessment principles. Section 163(f.1) defines the “market valuation standard” as comprising four cumulative requirements: use of mass appraisal; an estimate of the market value of the estate in fee simple in the property; reflection of typical market conditions for similar properties; and compliance with quality assurance standards established by the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency. Section 165(3) states that equity is the dominant and controlling factor in assessments, and s. 165(5) provides that equity in non-regulated property assessments is achieved by applying the market valuation standard so that assessments bear a fair and just proportion to the market value of similar properties as of the base date.
The Court of Appeal accepted earlier authority (Affinity Holdings Ltd. v Shaunavon (Town)) that, in assessment law, the “estate in fee simple” means the owner’s titled interest in the land and improvements, not the owner’s particular business use or financing structure. On that footing, the Court treated the statutory requirement to assess the fee simple estate of each unit and the CPA’s separate-assessment mandate as core policy features of the assessment regime. These policy terms and clauses—s. 5(2) and s. 93(2) CPA; ss. 163(f.1) and 165 Cities Act—were treated as determinative of how condominium properties must be valued for municipal tax purposes.

Court of Appeal’s analysis

On appeal, Mainstreet framed two main grounds. First, it argued that the Committee erred in law in holding that the Board’s order for a low-rise apartment model reassessment violated the market valuation standard. Mainstreet contended that the Committee’s focus on individual fee simple valuation improperly sidelined comparability and equity, in particular the requirement that assessments be comparable to similar properties and bear a fair and just proportion to their market value. Second, Mainstreet argued that the Committee wrongly concluded that the Board had ignored the factual matrix and explanations before it, including the evidence that the units were subject to a single mortgage and functioned as a unified rental apartment enterprise, and the prior decisions said to support the use of a multi-residential model for condominiumized properties.
Justice McCreary, writing for a unanimous Court of Appeal, rejected these arguments. The Court held that the legislative texts—especially s. 93(2) CPA and s. 163(f.1)(ii) Cities Act—require each condominium unit’s fee simple interest to be assessed individually. That requirement is not displaced by the fact that Mainstreet encumbered all 192 units with a single mortgage or chose to operate them collectively as a rental apartment complex. The Court reasoned that s. 93(2) CPA applies “notwithstanding” the assessing Act, and therefore any comparability-based argument under The Cities Act cannot trump the statutory command that each unit receive a separate assessment. It added that reading comparability so broadly as to allow consolidation of fee simple units into one apartment assessment would make the fee simple requirement in s. 163(f.1)(ii) essentially meaningless, contrary to basic principles of statutory interpretation that avoid redundancy.
The Court also emphasized that assessment law concerns the market value of the fee simple estate, not business value to the owner or the value of a particular mortgage or financing structure. Decisions about how to mortgage or “package” properties are business decisions that do not change the underlying legal nature of the property interests being assessed and are not part of the fee simple for municipal tax purposes. In line with long-standing authority, the Court reiterated that “value to the owner” or business value is not a proper basis for assessment. Mainstreet’s attempt to rely on the existence of a single mortgage and the practical inability to sell units individually in the current financing structure was therefore legally irrelevant.
On comparability and equity, the Court found that the Committee acted reasonably in concluding that the appropriate comparators for these 192 units were other individually titled condominium units, not apartment buildings held under a single title. The Committee had evidence that the City’s model used over 2,000 validated condominium sales across Saskatoon, and it correctly recognized that the City’s mass appraisal model both captured the fee simple interests and preserved equity among similar properties. The Court thus held that the Committee did not ignore the equity test; rather, it applied it within the constraints created by the CPA and the fee simple requirement in the market valuation standard.
As for the Board’s reliance on earlier Saskatchewan Municipal Board decisions (PR Investments and Prince Albert), the Court accepted the Committee’s view that those cases were distinguishable. They did not directly engage with the statutory requirement to assess the estate in fee simple, nor did they grapple with the CPA provisions on separate assessment of condominium units. The Committee was therefore entitled to find that the Board erred when it treated those decisions as “higher precedential decisions” and gave them overriding weight instead of the statutory scheme and the specific factual matrix before it.

Outcome and implications

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal dismissed Mainstreet Equity Corp.’s appeal. It affirmed that, under the combined operation of The Cities Act and The Condominium Property Act, 1993, each condominium unit held in fee simple must be assessed individually, even where all units are under common ownership, subject to a single blanket mortgage, and operated in practice as a unified rental apartment complex. The Court upheld the Assessment Appeals Committee’s restoration of the City’s original 2023 assessments, which used a condominium-based, single-family sales comparison mass appraisal model anchored in thousands of comparable condominium sales.
In its formal disposition, the Court ordered that the appeal be dismissed and that costs be awarded to the City of Saskatoon on both the application for leave and on the appeal, “in the usual manner.” The decision does not specify any fixed dollar amount for those costs, nor does it order any particular monetary damages; accordingly, while the City of Saskatoon is clearly the successful party, the exact total amount of costs or monetary award in its favour cannot be determined from this judgment.