Paying for unit repairs
It is not unusual for condominiums to use operating funds and reserve
funds to pay for the maintenance and replacements for items that are
the unit owners responsibility.
New & older
condos
In many new condo towers, the declaration states that the unit owners
own the fan coils and the dryer vents and must maintain them and pay
for replacements.
In practice however, far too many owners will not maintain their fan
coils so after a few years of neglect, water leaks, that damage the
units below, are common
in some buildings.
Many owners will not clean their clothes dryer vents. Clogged vents can
easily catch on fire by the hot air exhausted by the dryer.
The solution
It depends on the condo.
Some boards send notices to the residents stating that it is
their responsibility to maintain their fan coils and dryer vents and if
their failure to do so creates a flood or fire, they will be
responsible to pay for all damages to the other units and the common
elements. (The owners better have insurance.)
Other condos will have contractors come into the units on a regular
basis to perform regular maintenance on these two items and the owners
must pay for this service. Alternatively, the owners must show
management documentation proving that they had the maintenance done.
The remainder of the condo corporations hire and pay contractors to
service all the fan coils and dryer vents out of the operating funds.
Older
condos
In many older condominiums, the declaration states that the windows
belong to the unit owner and are not common elements. Therefore when
the windows need replacing, the owner needs to pay for the replacements.
This may work better in townhouses than apartment towers but having the
owners pay for their windows were common to both.
However, in practice it did not work well as many owners would not
replace their windows and there were disputes on what kind of windows
the board would allow to be installed.
The concern
Make sure that the corporation has made allowances in the budget to pay
for this
maintenance in the operating fund and if fan coils or windows are going
to be replaced by the corporation, that the cost of these items are
included in the Reserve Fund Study.
This means that the owners should be paying for this extra maintenance
and replacements through higher monthly fees. Sounds like common sense
but common sense is not that common.
One townhouse corporation in the GTA pays for the replacement of
windows. In a five year period, they paid $214,918 for windows. The
money came out of its reserve funds.
Door &
window replacements
2012
|
2011
|
2010
|
2009
|
2008
|
Total
|
$60,399
|
93,220
|
26,618
|
18,903
|
15,778
|
$214,918
|
The problems is that the cost of replacing windows was not included in
the Reserve Fund Study, nor was it part of the annual budgets, so
replacing the windows depleted
the reserve funds.
To cover herself, the auditor added this note in the back of the
financial statements.
Reserve fund expenditures included amounts incurred on window
replacements and front yard maintenance costs. These costs according to
the Corporation's Declaration should be the owner's responsibility, but
the corporation has been habitually looking after. The Corporation is
undertaking legal proceedings to amend and update the Corporation's
Declaration to make window replacement and front yard maintenance the
responsibility of the Corporation.
Similar notes to this were written for the previous five years and the
corporation never did get around to having the declaration changed.
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