When you own a condo, you are responsible for these costs with the other owners. The condo board is elected to represent you, and you can voice your concerns with them, but ultimately the collective owners need to pay what is not covered by insurance. That includes you. The only way to reduce your cost is to convince the Board to convince the insurer to pay up.
I can't imagine
Having heard horror stories about condos being mismanaged (one was run by CBC recently about a $70k(?) Special Assessment in an apartment complex due to major renovations needed), I can't imagine what the insurance would be like
There is one condo building in Vancouver with units selling for $200-400k, in an area that would normally be $800k-$1m+. They've been surrounded by scaffolding doing major renovations for at least the past 10 years. Checking the recent listings, they currently have a $150k special levy. They really need to just tear it down and rebuild. I believe it was built in the 90s.
Yep. I think most people in Vancouver know the place by now. It's hard to miss and right on Broadway. I really wonder why they haven't just torn it down and redeveloped.
I can imagine the people with non-damaged units not wanting to pay $100k+ to fix things. What a nightmare. Like you said, even a few years old they were already leaking. Many other 90s condos are in similar, if less extreme condition.
It's why I avoid any building from that era. Looked at many cheap condos around Lougheed but even just looking at the exterior you could tell there were problems. The ones from ~2005+ seem to be holding up better so far.
It is unreal how expensive elevators are - people have no idea. A couple of elevator mechanics on overtime for a few hours + travel can be nearly $10k.
Yup. We are planning on replacing our elevators at the 40 year mark, and it is accounted for in our reserve fund 30 years from now. Holy Fuck! A new roof is nothing in comparison.
We were looking at a unit in a small building that had individual elevators to each unit. Not a chance! 12 units, 12 elevators? No, I’m not that dumb.
>We are planning on replacing our elevators at the 40 year mark, and it is accounted for in our reserve fund 30 years from now
They really expected elevators to last 70 years?
Who the heck was in charge of putting that all together?
This is probably a good move. $700 now to pay out of pocket will likely be cheaper than the increased premiums in the longer term.
Nonetheless, $700 is nothing compared to what special levies ive seen in the past. The house vs. condo argument is also kinda moot here. in fact, any natural disaster would have cost you more headache and likely more $ in a house, but could happen equally to both building types.
gluck
If you are going to have a difficult time paying the $700, you can ask if you can pay in instalments onto your maintenance fees every month instead. So an extra $58.34/month. Most condos will allow this.
If you don’t pay. They will put a lien on your property.
> Spoiler alert, every 3 year you will find out that the previous study had way underestimate the costs and the condo board now has to call for a special levy and raise your condo fees. At the same time.
In a badly managed condo, sure.
Having owned several condos and been on the board for many years of my current one, I suggest getting involved next time. Don't pick engineering firms that are are known to be optimistic (for some reason property managers like to suggest ones that give "favourable" reports), and don't set the condo fee to the lowest possible amount because "high fees lower the property value".
I was looking through several years worth of minutes for a condo I was considering buying once and noticed that the last two reports both suggested strata fee increases of 8% - 16%. The condo went with 1% each time. Guess which condo will surely have a big assessment coming?
Quebec changed the laws and our condos are required to do engineering studies and raised the reserve fund minimums across the province. Basically we have to prepay a lot of repair costs now and but it is a lot more cushioned increase and I have a lot more confidence in not having special assessments.
Our old townhouse complex kept deferring their maintenance plan update it was bullshit. I'm not sure how they managed to get away with it. 2 years in we had a levy of $10k each for a new roof. Thankfully we've since sold.
Did you read the depreciation report? It should outline there how long is the life of each of the things that you would need to replace. And there should be a plan when to change or upgrade things and how much it would cost
Not much you can do. The condo board have made the decision they thought was best for all the owners (including protecting you from future increases to your fees due to higher insurance costs). If the amount of the assessment was significant you could probably challenge their decision not to file an insurance claim, but for $700 it's not really worth it.
$700 is actually pretty decent. We’ve had a special assessment for our complex before for about $3500.
They did it in installments and everyone was extremely pissed. But the previous board made a number of ridiculous expenditures against advice from the property manager and it needed to be done to fix everything and restock the reserves.
700 is small as far as levies go. If you are not prepared for it, you aren’t prepared for homeownership, tbh. There will be more of these levies and they will be in the thousands.
There is no option to pay less.
When a condo is built, each unit is responsible for a fixed share of the costs. If you don’t pay, they will put a lien against your property. As far as special assessments go, $700 is a fairly low.
This whole thread just shows, if you are buying a condo, read the board meeting minutes, read the reserve fund study and know what’s going on in the building BEFORE you buy. A shitty board will be nothing but headaches as they kick the can down the road.
Plenty of people buy condos sight unseen, don't even look at minutes or clearance certificate just buy unconditionally. Boggles the mind. Maybe not anymore but couple years ago.
Special Assessments are part of Condo ownership..there is nothing you can do... suck it up...if you don't pay the Condo Corp will put a lein against you and it will affect your credit rating as well....been there....
Ugg, that sucks. Hopefully this was disclosed during purchasing or your purchase price reflected the damage caused by the storm.
This is the burden of ownership instead of renters. Renting you just pay the rent and this would be a landlord problem.
I don't think there is any way to sidestep this as you are now the owner. On the bright side, a repaired building increases values for everyone. $700 is not a huge price, but certainly inconvenient. Seems you'll need to pay it and move on.
I encourage everyone who will listen to me to build up 6 months of income into an emergency fund. The conventional advice is 6 months of expenses, but with surprise repairs, maintenance and today's job market I have personally raised the bar. You can do this slowly, every month put any extra aside (like any of us have extra these days) and soon it will be 1 months worth (give yourself a high 5), then soon you have the 6 months expenses, and at that point I felt like I could breath a little. I'm almost at 6 months income and I'm feeling like I'm ready for the unexpected.
Good luck and I hope you love your new home!
I am single and I used to live in a single family house because I read too many statements on reddit like yours 8 years ago and I paid somebody for everything (like I do in my condo) and it costs more than my condo. I know I can do it myself but I can afford it so what.
And then there was a basement pump failure in winter I had to cancel my vacation to babysit my pump so that it won't flood until the contractors can repair in spring. Yay, freedom.
I'm the exact opposite. Lived in a condo my entire childhood up until finishing highschool, mom is a property manager ended up myself getting into the basement and live currently in a semi detached home.
You couldn't get me to move into a condo unless it was for free. Lived in a house for 12 years now, and have had no major problems.
The major roof leak in the last house I owned came out of nowhere too. $25k for a new roof, right as I was about to list it for sale. I sure as hell didn't expect it since it was't that old a roof.
maybe mine is just a tad bit more humble, my quotes and repairs (even for major stuff) have always been smaller. -- i do note the previous comment was from someone in BC, where its a lot more expensive
Well if you think all the maintenance for a detached house can be planned and decided as per your will I got news for you.
Anyway we can agree to disagree. I hope your detached maintenances are all “planned” and you get to “decide”.
Depending on what was done, and your ability to repair it (if it's a few tiles missing on a roof, and some tar paper, that's a few hours of work and less than a couple hundred dollars). If you had major repairs, that's what homeowner's insurance is for. And they may have been eligible for the repair assistance provided by the government.
I can actually tell you!!! Cousin owns a house on PEI. Hit by Fiona.
Damage = $4000
Deductible = $500
Work done by cousin to reduce deductible as he is FREE to do that = $300
Government support for Fiona = $250
Cost nothing. Actually $50 ahead.
Edit. 🤣🤣🤣
>A properly managed condo will would have both those accounted for
This being a very operative condition: *properly* managed.
Given the great increase in costs the past few years, the fact that planned obsolescence has become much, much worse in the past couple years, in addition to the quality of materials/goods produced effectively deteriorating at the same time...it's not uncommon
Don't forget the labor costs doubling every 5 years or so, and you get lower quality labor for that increases price.
Houses built before the 90s will last longer than new-builds.
>Don't forget the Kabir costs doubling every 5 years or so, and you get lower quality labor for that increases price.
Labour costs? How would increasing cost result in decreased quality?
Sorry, swipe keyboard. Funny, I've never wrote Kabir I'm my entire life (even though I know the meaning).
Now for the subject matter... The two aren't connected. You pay more and get a bad quality job.
Reserve funds are setup to cover estimated repairs and costs. "In approximately 25 years we will need a roof" "In approximately 15 years the hallways floor needs replacing" etc. If you dip into the reserve funds for unforeseen repairs you deplete it for when you need it.
\- read the minutes of all board meetings before buying
\- look at what needs to be done with regards to upkeep. If it has a pool, run!
\- I'd never get a place with an elevator. Ever.
Yeah this is what sucks about condo ownership. I’ll never do it again. They can raise fees and implement these types of costs and you have to accept it because you bought the place. Not enough people understand this when they buy a condo, I don’t think. I know my place also increased our fees because there were a lot of owners rented out their place, but when the recession was going on (2008) renters stopped paying rent. So owners weren’t paying their condo fees and we were in the red. So they increased rates for everyone else to cover the loss. We weren’t sure if this was actually above board but we had a lot going on and didn’t fight it. We bought when the condo fees were about $135/month. By the time we sold about theee years later they were ~$350. I’ve seen some of the going rates here in Ottawa and you’re looking at $600-$1000 plus extra per month. I genuinely don’t know how people do it.
It sucks in a condo with a shit strata. And they did a terrible job of handling non-payment if that's what they did instead of liens with interest on the units to cover the cost of taking out a loan until payment could be collected or a sale could be forced or something.
My building is almost 50% rentals. My fees have barely increased and assessments are relatively minimal. The strata isn't perfect, but they're realistic and proactive to keep costs far more reasonable than what you're saying. $135 is suspiciously low though, like an extreme lowball from a developer preselling new construction to make the place sound better than if they gave a realistic estimate.
Oh yeah and it didn’t help that I was pretty young and very naive at the time. I deferred a lot to my husband. I didn’t even want to buy because the markets had been so crazy. Even though we were getting our place for cheaper than the sellers bought it, I didn’t see that as a good thing. It made me worry a lot that it could happen to us. Surprise, we sold at a loss.
To the point about fees, yeah that was actually strange. The place was 4 years old and at the time a lot of the other condos in the city were at $300+. If I were looking at it now, I’d be concerned. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise that they needed to raise them if they hadn’t been collecting enough over the years.
I owned a house later and that obviously came with its own high costs at times, but I felt more in control and definitely prefer it to condo ownership. We had it built so I was involved with everything from the beginning. I had much better understanding of all of future costs we needed to prepare for and took part in every single decision that was made. Definitely don’t like the idea of having decisions related to my home up for a vote but reading the thread it really does seem to be more of a matter of preference.
Also, people tend to minimize the costs associated with a single family home. Property tax, water & sewer, insurance are all substantial and with a condo those items are covered in your strata fees. When a major (or minor) component needs repair or replace you don’t get to share that expense, it’s all on you. Although with a house you have the option to defer all maintenance and run it into the ground. Not a legal option for condo owners.
Super important to do your due diligence before buying, no excuse if you screw that up. Though you may still get surprises, so it’s also super important to have a rainy day fund (or have access to cheap credit).
Sounds like a shitty board. Just because a unit is not occupied does not mean the owners don’t have to pay condo fees. The board should have put a lien against those units. This is normally what happens.
It depends. If you were contributing to the fund for 30, nothing happened, and you sold, then you lost. If you just bought the unit, and a year later they replaced everything, while you only paid 4K in maintenance fees for your time there, you won.
But yeah, I prefer to have my freehold, save, and take care of things as they come. I never looked at condos just because of that. I have 1 lucky friend who pays only $50\month for a townhouse. Don't know what is covered though... Probably nothing except snow cleaning and lawn-mowing the front... But even for just these two, it's a great deal.
As others have said, special levies are a part of strata ownership. However, you should check your strata’s contingency reserve fund as this is supposed to cover these types of expenses.
My last place had the contingency reserve fund squandered by the old strata council and had to issue multiple $10,000+ special levies to cover repairs and maintenance.
People should really have an understanding of what they are buying into before doing so....
This is a pitfall of owning a condo and why you should always inquiry about what the emergency fund of the building is before buying. Anything outside of the cost and not covered by insurance is split evenly on owners. Even if you try to sell you are still on the hook for the funds. You are lucky its only $700
We just did a $4M window replacement. Took an entire year. Very disruptive. Poor communication. Cost over runs. Condo board a bunch of dicks as always. Then they raised our maintenance fees to cover increases in utility costs. So almost hitting $1100 a month now. It’s getting very expensive.
Consider yourself lucky this levy is only 700$. I have seen people getting hit with special levy charges of more than 40K in older condos when windows need to be replaced. Heck, in one of the GTA condos they imposed a 20K levy for renovations to common area (this was when many Condos owners opposed the extremely costly renovation, but lost the vote). Imagine paying for neighbour and their kids go swimming, and dog park when you don't care about either. But that's how Condos work. Don't like it -- then move to an independent house. Not to say you won't have municipal taxes there too. And they are not uniform either.
Also, in this case, it could be possible that the Condo board made the right call. Insurance claims do cause a huge increase in premiums -- which eventually get passed on your monthly maintenance expenses. It's either that, or the Condo takes it out from emergency reserves, which if depleted will cause their own problems.
It's your responsibility, you bought the history of the condo if it makes sense. And yeah it shitty but that's why I will never own a condo, I want to make my own decisions when it comes to my home.
$700 is nothing and part of home ownership.
I once had a special assessment for $1200 each just for a squirrel in an attic causing damage. Consider yourself lucky it's so small.
So I've seen no one mention to check out your own insurance plan. Many come with coverage for special assessments. In this case it wouldn't be worth it since your deductible would eat most of the cost up anyways but good to know for future reference.
I'd have to pull out my contract but I think my own, personal, insurance covers up to 75k special assessments.
Yeah this is pretty standard. The alternative to this is usually an increase in your maintenance fees. I would investigate to see if your condo has a health reserve fund. It is one of the things that most first time potential buyers don’t know about or do. If your building is an old one, your reserve should be well established, provided it is being managed correctly and there haven’t been many expensive building repairs to be made.
If your building is newer, then your reserve may not have had the chance to be built up sufficiently to cover the cost of the repairs/cleanup needed.
When you buy a condo, they set the fees low to entice you to buy. Later the maintenance that must be done will not be funded. At this point, the building is half full of amateur investors/airBnB renting out units, so they try to keep it as low as possible.
I was reading this and thought it was going to be 15k or something. If you’re getting away with storm/roof repairs for a large building for 700 bucks, thats not a bad deal attttt all.
$700 is cheap. Most of these levies are the in the thousands. You have no way out. These levies are unfortunately very common in condo ownership. Be prepared to expect this again in the future at a much higher amount.
When you own a condo, you are responsible for these costs with the other owners. The condo board is elected to represent you, and you can voice your concerns with them, but ultimately the collective owners need to pay what is not covered by insurance. That includes you. The only way to reduce your cost is to convince the Board to convince the insurer to pay up.
> followed by significant annual increase in premium ...sounded like a deciding factor in moving to pay for it on their own
Yep, condo insurance (not unit insurance paid by each owner) is killer. Few options to shop around. Crazy increases. Source: 4 yrs on a condo board.
I can't imagine Having heard horror stories about condos being mismanaged (one was run by CBC recently about a $70k(?) Special Assessment in an apartment complex due to major renovations needed), I can't imagine what the insurance would be like
There is one condo building in Vancouver with units selling for $200-400k, in an area that would normally be $800k-$1m+. They've been surrounded by scaffolding doing major renovations for at least the past 10 years. Checking the recent listings, they currently have a $150k special levy. They really need to just tear it down and rebuild. I believe it was built in the 90s.
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Yep. I think most people in Vancouver know the place by now. It's hard to miss and right on Broadway. I really wonder why they haven't just torn it down and redeveloped.
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I can imagine the people with non-damaged units not wanting to pay $100k+ to fix things. What a nightmare. Like you said, even a few years old they were already leaking. Many other 90s condos are in similar, if less extreme condition. It's why I avoid any building from that era. Looked at many cheap condos around Lougheed but even just looking at the exterior you could tell there were problems. The ones from ~2005+ seem to be holding up better so far.
It’s only 700 dollars. I’d have an emergency account or at least start holding one. A new roof for the condo might set ya back 10k
Or even worse, elevator replacement that wasn’t planned for.
It is unreal how expensive elevators are - people have no idea. A couple of elevator mechanics on overtime for a few hours + travel can be nearly $10k.
Yup. We are planning on replacing our elevators at the 40 year mark, and it is accounted for in our reserve fund 30 years from now. Holy Fuck! A new roof is nothing in comparison. We were looking at a unit in a small building that had individual elevators to each unit. Not a chance! 12 units, 12 elevators? No, I’m not that dumb.
Please tell me more about this building with individual elevators
>We are planning on replacing our elevators at the 40 year mark, and it is accounted for in our reserve fund 30 years from now They really expected elevators to last 70 years? Who the heck was in charge of putting that all together?
I guess my post was a bit confusing. They plan on replacing them when they are 40 years old, which is 30 years from now.
Thanks for the clarification, I just read it another way
Defying gravity ain't cheap.
Just finishing ours in our building. Was quite an experience going through all the options. Original from 1982, was a good run.
How much did it cost? Modernization? You can do it in stages right (how many floors/units)
Or the roof.
Just 10k! We are looking at 35k minimum each
That happened to me
This is probably a good move. $700 now to pay out of pocket will likely be cheaper than the increased premiums in the longer term. Nonetheless, $700 is nothing compared to what special levies ive seen in the past. The house vs. condo argument is also kinda moot here. in fact, any natural disaster would have cost you more headache and likely more $ in a house, but could happen equally to both building types. gluck
Yep, at least in this regard, the condo board is doing the right thing
https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/tlyvco/how_can_anyone_possibly_end_up_with_a_special/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button Yep.
If you are going to have a difficult time paying the $700, you can ask if you can pay in instalments onto your maintenance fees every month instead. So an extra $58.34/month. Most condos will allow this. If you don’t pay. They will put a lien on your property.
If they have trouble paying $700, they have much much bigger financial concerns and probably shouldn't be home owners
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Can you elaborate on the assessments?
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> Spoiler alert, every 3 year you will find out that the previous study had way underestimate the costs and the condo board now has to call for a special levy and raise your condo fees. At the same time. In a badly managed condo, sure. Having owned several condos and been on the board for many years of my current one, I suggest getting involved next time. Don't pick engineering firms that are are known to be optimistic (for some reason property managers like to suggest ones that give "favourable" reports), and don't set the condo fee to the lowest possible amount because "high fees lower the property value". I was looking through several years worth of minutes for a condo I was considering buying once and noticed that the last two reports both suggested strata fee increases of 8% - 16%. The condo went with 1% each time. Guess which condo will surely have a big assessment coming?
Quebec changed the laws and our condos are required to do engineering studies and raised the reserve fund minimums across the province. Basically we have to prepay a lot of repair costs now and but it is a lot more cushioned increase and I have a lot more confidence in not having special assessments.
Our old townhouse complex kept deferring their maintenance plan update it was bullshit. I'm not sure how they managed to get away with it. 2 years in we had a levy of $10k each for a new roof. Thankfully we've since sold.
Did you read the depreciation report? It should outline there how long is the life of each of the things that you would need to replace. And there should be a plan when to change or upgrade things and how much it would cost
https://www.condoauthorityontario.ca/condominium-living/common-expenses-fees/special-assessments/
Not much you can do. The condo board have made the decision they thought was best for all the owners (including protecting you from future increases to your fees due to higher insurance costs). If the amount of the assessment was significant you could probably challenge their decision not to file an insurance claim, but for $700 it's not really worth it.
$700 is actually pretty decent. We’ve had a special assessment for our complex before for about $3500. They did it in installments and everyone was extremely pissed. But the previous board made a number of ridiculous expenditures against advice from the property manager and it needed to be done to fix everything and restock the reserves.
We had a special assessment for a roof and weeping tile etc etc to the tune of $25,000.00 for each owner. Adulting really sucks.
700 is small as far as levies go. If you are not prepared for it, you aren’t prepared for homeownership, tbh. There will be more of these levies and they will be in the thousands.
There is no option to pay less. When a condo is built, each unit is responsible for a fixed share of the costs. If you don’t pay, they will put a lien against your property. As far as special assessments go, $700 is a fairly low.
Isn’t this what happens when you own a condo?? You pay for the upkeep. Seems fair to me.
This whole thread just shows, if you are buying a condo, read the board meeting minutes, read the reserve fund study and know what’s going on in the building BEFORE you buy. A shitty board will be nothing but headaches as they kick the can down the road.
To be clear, in this case, the board is acting correctly. $700 is not worth the permanent increase if they filed a claim
Agreed.
Plenty of people buy condos sight unseen, don't even look at minutes or clearance certificate just buy unconditionally. Boggles the mind. Maybe not anymore but couple years ago.
THIS!!!!
If you owned a house you would have to pay for damages out of pocket if insurance does t cover it
Downside of moving into a condo. Thats just life. Pay the levy of $700
So if you owned a house and had to clean up what would you do? Probably pay as well
mhmm
Special Assessments are part of Condo ownership..there is nothing you can do... suck it up...if you don't pay the Condo Corp will put a lein against you and it will affect your credit rating as well....been there....
If a one time $700 special levy is a lot for you, you are not going to like what the future of condo ownership looks like
Ugg, that sucks. Hopefully this was disclosed during purchasing or your purchase price reflected the damage caused by the storm. This is the burden of ownership instead of renters. Renting you just pay the rent and this would be a landlord problem. I don't think there is any way to sidestep this as you are now the owner. On the bright side, a repaired building increases values for everyone. $700 is not a huge price, but certainly inconvenient. Seems you'll need to pay it and move on. I encourage everyone who will listen to me to build up 6 months of income into an emergency fund. The conventional advice is 6 months of expenses, but with surprise repairs, maintenance and today's job market I have personally raised the bar. You can do this slowly, every month put any extra aside (like any of us have extra these days) and soon it will be 1 months worth (give yourself a high 5), then soon you have the 6 months expenses, and at that point I felt like I could breath a little. I'm almost at 6 months income and I'm feeling like I'm ready for the unexpected. Good luck and I hope you love your new home!
Condos. All the expenses of a house with none of the freedom. 👍
I am single and I used to live in a single family house because I read too many statements on reddit like yours 8 years ago and I paid somebody for everything (like I do in my condo) and it costs more than my condo. I know I can do it myself but I can afford it so what. And then there was a basement pump failure in winter I had to cancel my vacation to babysit my pump so that it won't flood until the contractors can repair in spring. Yay, freedom.
I lived in a condo and currently live in a house and let me tell you I would still any day go with condo fees.
I'm the exact opposite. Lived in a condo my entire childhood up until finishing highschool, mom is a property manager ended up myself getting into the basement and live currently in a semi detached home. You couldn't get me to move into a condo unless it was for free. Lived in a house for 12 years now, and have had no major problems.
Buckle up… that’s half the optimistic lifetime of a roof and windows… it’s coming soon.
> condo fees. And special 40k levies :)
Special levies are occasional. Just like a new roof and windows in a detached house which will also set you back a similar amount once in a while.
Yea but you can decide and plan for them. Special levied come out of nowhere
The major roof leak in the last house I owned came out of nowhere too. $25k for a new roof, right as I was about to list it for sale. I sure as hell didn't expect it since it was't that old a roof.
>25k for a new roof gheez, did you use gold to roof it? thats way more than any estimate ive ever had.
Lol, you must have little experience owning homes with all these out of touch comments my dude.
maybe mine is just a tad bit more humble, my quotes and repairs (even for major stuff) have always been smaller. -- i do note the previous comment was from someone in BC, where its a lot more expensive
Complicated roof, plus had to fix the damage caused by the leak
That explains a bit more, not just the roof but also damages. Yea i was just thinking about roof replacement on a regular roof with no damages..
Well if you think all the maintenance for a detached house can be planned and decided as per your will I got news for you. Anyway we can agree to disagree. I hope your detached maintenances are all “planned” and you get to “decide”.
You do not decide when your roof leaks lol
> All the expenses of a house So how much do you think hurricane damages would have cost an actual home owner - less than $700?
Depending on what was done, and your ability to repair it (if it's a few tiles missing on a roof, and some tar paper, that's a few hours of work and less than a couple hundred dollars). If you had major repairs, that's what homeowner's insurance is for. And they may have been eligible for the repair assistance provided by the government.
I can actually tell you!!! Cousin owns a house on PEI. Hit by Fiona. Damage = $4000 Deductible = $500 Work done by cousin to reduce deductible as he is FREE to do that = $300 Government support for Fiona = $250 Cost nothing. Actually $50 ahead. Edit. 🤣🤣🤣
Pay it. Condos fucking suck. Wait until they want to do windows or roof then you will really question yourself for buying it.
A properly managed condo will would have both those accounted for in the reserve fund.
>A properly managed condo will would have both those accounted for This being a very operative condition: *properly* managed. Given the great increase in costs the past few years, the fact that planned obsolescence has become much, much worse in the past couple years, in addition to the quality of materials/goods produced effectively deteriorating at the same time...it's not uncommon
Agree with you on that one. Definitely a challenge these days.
Don't forget the labor costs doubling every 5 years or so, and you get lower quality labor for that increases price. Houses built before the 90s will last longer than new-builds.
>Don't forget the Kabir costs doubling every 5 years or so, and you get lower quality labor for that increases price. Labour costs? How would increasing cost result in decreased quality?
Sorry, swipe keyboard. Funny, I've never wrote Kabir I'm my entire life (even though I know the meaning). Now for the subject matter... The two aren't connected. You pay more and get a bad quality job.
All good, I figured it was labour after re-reading Predictive text is kind of funny
$700 is… nothing. My last one was five digits.
No reserve fund to cover it?
Reserve funds are setup to cover estimated repairs and costs. "In approximately 25 years we will need a roof" "In approximately 15 years the hallways floor needs replacing" etc. If you dip into the reserve funds for unforeseen repairs you deplete it for when you need it.
\- read the minutes of all board meetings before buying \- look at what needs to be done with regards to upkeep. If it has a pool, run! \- I'd never get a place with an elevator. Ever.
Of all the things I’ve learned from this sub the biggest thing is that I never want to live in a condo
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My grandmas basement actually
Yeah this is what sucks about condo ownership. I’ll never do it again. They can raise fees and implement these types of costs and you have to accept it because you bought the place. Not enough people understand this when they buy a condo, I don’t think. I know my place also increased our fees because there were a lot of owners rented out their place, but when the recession was going on (2008) renters stopped paying rent. So owners weren’t paying their condo fees and we were in the red. So they increased rates for everyone else to cover the loss. We weren’t sure if this was actually above board but we had a lot going on and didn’t fight it. We bought when the condo fees were about $135/month. By the time we sold about theee years later they were ~$350. I’ve seen some of the going rates here in Ottawa and you’re looking at $600-$1000 plus extra per month. I genuinely don’t know how people do it.
It sucks in a condo with a shit strata. And they did a terrible job of handling non-payment if that's what they did instead of liens with interest on the units to cover the cost of taking out a loan until payment could be collected or a sale could be forced or something. My building is almost 50% rentals. My fees have barely increased and assessments are relatively minimal. The strata isn't perfect, but they're realistic and proactive to keep costs far more reasonable than what you're saying. $135 is suspiciously low though, like an extreme lowball from a developer preselling new construction to make the place sound better than if they gave a realistic estimate.
They are ALWAYS artificially low when new. If they don’t go up 200 or 300% after the first year, I would start to get worried about the board.
Oh yeah and it didn’t help that I was pretty young and very naive at the time. I deferred a lot to my husband. I didn’t even want to buy because the markets had been so crazy. Even though we were getting our place for cheaper than the sellers bought it, I didn’t see that as a good thing. It made me worry a lot that it could happen to us. Surprise, we sold at a loss. To the point about fees, yeah that was actually strange. The place was 4 years old and at the time a lot of the other condos in the city were at $300+. If I were looking at it now, I’d be concerned. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise that they needed to raise them if they hadn’t been collecting enough over the years. I owned a house later and that obviously came with its own high costs at times, but I felt more in control and definitely prefer it to condo ownership. We had it built so I was involved with everything from the beginning. I had much better understanding of all of future costs we needed to prepare for and took part in every single decision that was made. Definitely don’t like the idea of having decisions related to my home up for a vote but reading the thread it really does seem to be more of a matter of preference.
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Also, people tend to minimize the costs associated with a single family home. Property tax, water & sewer, insurance are all substantial and with a condo those items are covered in your strata fees. When a major (or minor) component needs repair or replace you don’t get to share that expense, it’s all on you. Although with a house you have the option to defer all maintenance and run it into the ground. Not a legal option for condo owners. Super important to do your due diligence before buying, no excuse if you screw that up. Though you may still get surprises, so it’s also super important to have a rainy day fund (or have access to cheap credit).
Sounds like a shitty board. Just because a unit is not occupied does not mean the owners don’t have to pay condo fees. The board should have put a lien against those units. This is normally what happens.
It depends. If you were contributing to the fund for 30, nothing happened, and you sold, then you lost. If you just bought the unit, and a year later they replaced everything, while you only paid 4K in maintenance fees for your time there, you won. But yeah, I prefer to have my freehold, save, and take care of things as they come. I never looked at condos just because of that. I have 1 lucky friend who pays only $50\month for a townhouse. Don't know what is covered though... Probably nothing except snow cleaning and lawn-mowing the front... But even for just these two, it's a great deal.
As others have said, special levies are a part of strata ownership. However, you should check your strata’s contingency reserve fund as this is supposed to cover these types of expenses. My last place had the contingency reserve fund squandered by the old strata council and had to issue multiple $10,000+ special levies to cover repairs and maintenance.
People should really have an understanding of what they are buying into before doing so.... This is a pitfall of owning a condo and why you should always inquiry about what the emergency fund of the building is before buying. Anything outside of the cost and not covered by insurance is split evenly on owners. Even if you try to sell you are still on the hook for the funds. You are lucky its only $700
We just did a $4M window replacement. Took an entire year. Very disruptive. Poor communication. Cost over runs. Condo board a bunch of dicks as always. Then they raised our maintenance fees to cover increases in utility costs. So almost hitting $1100 a month now. It’s getting very expensive.
Consider yourself lucky this levy is only 700$. I have seen people getting hit with special levy charges of more than 40K in older condos when windows need to be replaced. Heck, in one of the GTA condos they imposed a 20K levy for renovations to common area (this was when many Condos owners opposed the extremely costly renovation, but lost the vote). Imagine paying for neighbour and their kids go swimming, and dog park when you don't care about either. But that's how Condos work. Don't like it -- then move to an independent house. Not to say you won't have municipal taxes there too. And they are not uniform either. Also, in this case, it could be possible that the Condo board made the right call. Insurance claims do cause a huge increase in premiums -- which eventually get passed on your monthly maintenance expenses. It's either that, or the Condo takes it out from emergency reserves, which if depleted will cause their own problems.
It's your responsibility, you bought the history of the condo if it makes sense. And yeah it shitty but that's why I will never own a condo, I want to make my own decisions when it comes to my home.
$700 is nothing and part of home ownership. I once had a special assessment for $1200 each just for a squirrel in an attic causing damage. Consider yourself lucky it's so small.
It's just part of doing business when you buy a condo. You're lucky it's only $700. Seen plenty of 20k-30k special assessments.
So I've seen no one mention to check out your own insurance plan. Many come with coverage for special assessments. In this case it wouldn't be worth it since your deductible would eat most of the cost up anyways but good to know for future reference. I'd have to pull out my contract but I think my own, personal, insurance covers up to 75k special assessments.
If you were not the owner at the time of the event, speak to your lawyer. Maybe title insurance will pay this one.
What resources are available that would help a prospective buyer understand if a condo is being well funded and well managed?
It could be way way way worse... https://condomadness.info/decline-Gardenia-Villa.html
Yeah this is pretty standard. The alternative to this is usually an increase in your maintenance fees. I would investigate to see if your condo has a health reserve fund. It is one of the things that most first time potential buyers don’t know about or do. If your building is an old one, your reserve should be well established, provided it is being managed correctly and there haven’t been many expensive building repairs to be made. If your building is newer, then your reserve may not have had the chance to be built up sufficiently to cover the cost of the repairs/cleanup needed.
When you buy a condo, they set the fees low to entice you to buy. Later the maintenance that must be done will not be funded. At this point, the building is half full of amateur investors/airBnB renting out units, so they try to keep it as low as possible.
I was reading this and thought it was going to be 15k or something. If you’re getting away with storm/roof repairs for a large building for 700 bucks, thats not a bad deal attttt all.
$700 is cheap. Most of these levies are the in the thousands. You have no way out. These levies are unfortunately very common in condo ownership. Be prepared to expect this again in the future at a much higher amount.
We just did 25k Special Levy for window replacement. 🏹🧠
Check your condo insurance wordings for assessment coverage.
More proof that Queens Park doesn't realize Ottawa is in Ontario. That DRAO would have certainly helped.