Condo special assessments

[Tik-Tok]

Legally speaking (not ethically, lol) does a seller of a condo have to disclose the information if they received a letter stating that sometime in the next year there will be a major special assessment, but there isn't actually a special assessment as of yet?

[Hallowed_point]

Yes. Unless you want to take it up the ass badly in the near future. If you are aware of it and fail to inform them, that's going to bite you badly. There is a paper trail or email trail. Don't do it.

[leftwing]

I would say no. Its up to the buyer to do their due diligence and find out how the condo board is managing the money. When I bought my condo I used some sort of company that reviewed all the condo docs for my building and assessed if the reserve fund was in good health and if there was any reason to believe that a special assessment would be levied in the near future.

That being said, if I asked the seller I would expect them to be honest, but I wouldn't rely solely on that.

[Cos]

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[JordanLotoski]

Pay the 400-500 dollars and have the documents reviewed, if there is talks of a special assessment then your agent should be able to work a holdback to cover that into the contract.

Let me know if you have any questions

[Tik-Tok]

More of a general question about it. My sister's condo board sent out the letters about a large special assessment, and within a month 3 places went up for sale (over the last 2 years, there's only been maybe 3 for sale until now)

I was just wondering if they were trying to sell prior to the assessment because they wouldn't have to disclose it.

[BMDUBS]

My condo just had a special assessment and of 42 units 7 are now for sale! We were given 1 month to pay and this is the second one in the past 5 years.

Get condo docs reviewed and also your lawyer will get an Estoppel certificate at closing

[revelations]

Condo docs are only in as much order as the condo management company is. Some of the more retarded ones (eg. Larylin, Cera) are backed up, seemingly lost and dont know where half the paper work is kept as they shuffle around more assistants that Walmart does greeters.

Therefore, condo doc checkers do the best they can with what they have been provided, in the (usually short) time they have been given.

I've deal with (as an owner) numerous condos and assessments. Its mind boggling how the board of many seem to lack basic common sense - ie. get a 10 year loan, up the condo fees a bit and spread the assessments to many owners that come and go in a large building - instead of hammering the existing owners (and board members) :dunno:

[cam_wmh]

Originally posted by leftwing
I would say no. Its up to the buyer to do their due diligence and find out how the condo board is managing the money. When I bought my condo I used some sort of company that reviewed all the condo docs for my building and assessed if the reserve fund was in good health and if there was any reason to believe that a special assessment would be levied in the near future.

That being said, if I asked the seller I would expect them to be honest, but I wouldn't rely solely on that.

If I was buying, I'd sue you and win handily.


Originally posted by JordanLotoski
Pay the 400-500 dollars and have the documents reviewed, if there is talks of a special assessment then your agent should be able to work a holdback to cover that into the contract.

Let me know if you have any questions

^^ This + full disclosure this vv :

Originally posted by Cos
There is something called a disclosure document that the owner provides to the seller. It says that to the best of the knowledge of the management company there are not, or in your case are, outstanding unresolved assessments to the property.

I literally just went through this last week.

Edit here is the version of mine:


I was looking at a townhouse in Chateau falls, just north of 17th ave & 5th st sw. I noticed they had some stucco issues, and had my realtor put forth an offer, with a caveat that any special assessments within the 12 months post-purchase would befall the seller. :)

The selling realtor turned out to be a sketchbag, and they pulled the listing, advising "it's below market for a reason". My realtor, (albeit also useless), said a formal complaint had been made about the selling realtor.



Originally posted by revelations
Condo docs are only in as much order as the condo management company is. Some of the more retarded ones (eg. Larylin, Cera) are backed up, seemingly lost and dont know where half the paper work is kept as they shuffle around more assistants that Walmart does greeters.

Therefore, condo doc checkers do the best they can with what they have been provided, in the (usually short) time they have been given.

I've deal with (as an owner) numerous condos and assessments. Its mind boggling how the board of many seem to lack basic common sense - ie. get a 10 year loan, up the condo fees a bit and spread the assessments to many owners that come and go in a large building - instead of hammering the existing owners (and board members) :dunno:

Nailed it.

[googe]

Don't pay a company to review the condo docs, read them yourself. You can read, right? I'm surprised companies exist to do that. Some people are suckers I guess.

[ddduke]

Originally posted by cam_wmh


I was looking at a townhouse in Chateau falls, just north of 17th ave & 5th st sw. I noticed they had some stucco issues, and had my realtor put forth an offer, with a caveat that any special assessments within the 12 months post-purchase would befall the seller. :)



Are you talking about the ones with the awesome roof top patios? I'm sure they're the same ones.

Turns out that was the second one in 5 years, last time it was the roof that had to be done. $15000 is what they were charging for the exterior work to each tenant and there was virtually no reserve fund.

I really wanted to pull the trigger on one of those places, especially at what they were being sold for.

[BigMass]

I wonder why condos are such a big issue in Calgary / Canada when pretty much %99 of the world lives in condos or has lived in condos for hundreds of years without issue. The cultural / financial centers of the world like London, Paris, Manhattan, Tokyo, shanghai, etc are pretty much %100 condos filled with billionaires living in them without issue. Yet Calgary you still get, "man, I would NEVER buy or live in a condo, no way". "Condos are such a scam you're going to get killed with the assessments etc". Are condos in Calgary so different than anywhere else?

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by BigMass
I wonder why condos are such a big issue in Calgary / Canada when pretty much %99 of the world lives in condos or has lived in condos for hundreds of years without issue. The cultural / financial centers of the world like London, Paris, Manhattan, Tokyo, shanghai, etc are pretty much %100 condos filled with billionaires living in them without issue. Yet Calgary you still get, "man, I would NEVER buy or live in a condo, no way". "Condos are such a scam you're going to get killed with the assessments etc". Are condos in Calgary so different than anywhere else?

More of the idea of having a yard I think. Large cities world wide have been used to living in smaller housing conditions for generations, where as Calgary didn't exactly have a huge condo market up until 15 years ago. We're used to having space around us.

The people I don't understand are the ones that claim they'd never live in a condo, but then buy a tiny postage stamp of property with virtually no yard anyways :nut:

Doesn't help either of the horror stories you hear about incompetent power hungry condo boards. I'd rather not be told what I can do with my property and what I can't.

[leftwing]

Originally posted by cam_wmh


If I was buying, I'd sue you and win handily.




Would you?

[BMDUBS]

Originally posted by BigMass
I wonder why condos are such a big issue in Calgary / Canada when pretty much %99 of the world lives in condos or has lived in condos for hundreds of years without issue. The cultural / financial centers of the world like London, Paris, Manhattan, Tokyo, shanghai, etc are pretty much %100 condos filled with billionaires living in them without issue. Yet Calgary you still get, "man, I would NEVER buy or live in a condo, no way". "Condos are such a scam you're going to get killed with the assessments etc". Are condos in Calgary so different than anywhere else?

I think a lot of the problem is that condo boards are made up of volunteers often with no experience in managing properties and fiances. Being volunteers, they dont have a lot of time or effort to commit to running the building so they usually retain a management company and I have not heard of one that is worth their weight here in Calgary to manage the day to day operations. The companies tend to have far too many buildings to manage and can not provided the needed service boards are paying for.

Many of the management companies have 'preferred' contractors that thy recommend to Boards surely for kick backs etc. And because there is no one available to inspect, view and or sign off on work being performed, condo boards are usually at the mercy of the management company and the contractors that they hire. It gets even worse when they are engaged in monthly service contracts.

I will never live in a condo again lol even though I currently do and will have to for a while.

[cam_wmh]

Originally posted by ddduke


Are you talking about the ones with the awesome roof top patios? I'm sure they're the same ones.

Turns out that was the second one in 5 years, last time it was the roof that had to be done. $15000 is what they were charging for the exterior work to each tenant and there was virtually no reserve fund.

I really wanted to pull the trigger on one of those places, especially at what they were being sold for.

You bet those are the ones. I gave their financials/docs a look-over. Their board is poor at long term planning.


Originally posted by leftwing


Would you?
haha, sorry. "a what if scenario"
I'll re-word it as, you'd be prone to being sued, and losing.

[max_boost]

Originally posted by BigMass
I wonder why condos are such a big issue in Calgary / Canada when pretty much %99 of the world lives in condos or has lived in condos for hundreds of years without issue. The cultural / financial centers of the world like London, Paris, Manhattan, Tokyo, shanghai, etc are pretty much %100 condos filled with billionaires living in them without issue. Yet Calgary you still get, "man, I would NEVER buy or live in a condo, no way". "Condos are such a scam you're going to get killed with the assessments etc". Are condos in Calgary so different than anywhere else? haha ya i use to think like that too until i started traveling a bit and then realized a condo fits my lifestyle better. no marriage, no kids, no pt in house with yard. next move is def condo however special assessments sure suck.

[jdmXSI]

Originally posted by BMDUBS


I think a lot of the problem is that condo boards are made up of volunteers often with no experience in managing properties and fiances. Being volunteers, they dont have a lot of time or effort to commit to running the building so they usually retain a management company and I have not heard of one that is worth their weight here in Calgary to manage the day to day operations. The companies tend to have far too many buildings to manage and can not provided the needed service boards are paying for.

Many of the management companies have 'preferred' contractors that thy recommend to Boards surely for kick backs etc. And because there is no one available to inspect, view and or sign off on work being performed, condo boards are usually at the mercy of the management company and the contractors that they hire. It gets even worse when they are engaged in monthly service contracts.

I will never live in a condo again lol even though I currently do and will have to for a while.

I think you pretty much nailed it and I sit on my board. However I think we got pretty lucky with our current management company after they took over for unit management who left the condo corporation with thousands of unpaid debt to contractors.

As for special assessments, that is the reason why we are probably going to buy a house next year. Our condo complex is going through a $4mm project for the full building envelope and when you split that between 108 owners, things can add up quite quickly... on the bright side it should bring our property value up the same amount if not a little bit more. Back on topic a bit, our buildings have it if someone is selling, the assessment would need to be paid in full prior to the sale of any unit.

[gwill]

In regards to disclosure what happens if a seller doesn't provide all the documents they should and the buyer and their agent don't request this? It would be harder to prove much of anything then would it not?

I only ask because one of my first properties was a condo 5 yrs ago and i recall getting next to nothing related to the purchase. Fast forward to when i sold it recently I had a major list of things i needed to provide. I know lots has changed over the years but i would assume most of what we need to provide today would have been the same back then.

[Notorious1]

Originally posted by jdmXSI


I think you pretty much nailed it and I sit on my board. However I think we got pretty lucky with our current management company after they took over for unit management who left the condo corporation with thousands of unpaid debt to contractors.

As for special assessments, that is the reason why we are probably going to buy a house next year. Our condo complex is going through a $4mm project for the full building envelope and when you split that between 108 owners, things can add up quite quickly... on the bright side it should bring our property value up the same amount if not a little bit more. Back on topic a bit, our buildings have it if someone is selling, the assessment would need to be paid in full prior to the sale of any unit.


Which building are you in?

[Cos]

.

[gwill]

^I get that but the OP was asking if he can get away with not disclosing a special assessment that hasn't happened yet. If a seller provides most of the documents required but a buyer doesn't specifically ask for the information statement that would disclose any lawsuits or assessments can he really be sued or to blame?

Maybe there is something in the standard real estate contract that says you must disclose but If you didn't sign for the notice regarding the assessment then you can legally pretend you didn't know about it if you sell immediately.

On the flip side the assessment is most likely noted in the condo minutes but the OP was asking a hypothetical questions anyways.

Now i'm curious if a board member is aware of a "possible" assessment before its noted anywhere if they need to disclose that when selling. Or if its not been confirmed and only discussed privately if that's information isn't necessary to provide.