Anita made a complaint to the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) and received an email back confirming that her complaint had been assigned to a tribunal member. The letter indicated it would take approximately eight weeks for a decision to be reached. Five months later, and still without a decision, Anita followed up with the CRT. Much to her surprise, the CRT informed her that a decision had been emailed to her several months prior and that the 28-day time limit had passed to submit a Notice of Objection should she have wished to dispute the decision. Anita, however, never received the email – it got lost among the many spam emails she receives daily, and a hard copy of the decision was never mailed to her.

As Anita acknowledged that she had received the decision once she searched for it, the CRT could not act outside the authority given under the Act to expand the 28-day time limit to allow Anita to submit a Notice of Objection. Anita told us that the email included basic information and it was sent from a generic email address which is why it went unnoticed.

To remedy the communication issues found in our investigation, the CRT agreed to modify the template it sends when a tribunal member is assigned to a file to include the email address its decisions will be sent from, the approximate timeline for decisions to be rendered, and a link to its website that explains what options are available after a decision has been made.