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Condominium Act Amendments and Common Expense Increases

At the ACMO / CCI EO Condominium Conference on June 2nd, I offered my view that the Protecting Condominium Owners Act, 2015 (including amendments to the Condominium Act and the introduction of mandatory licensing for condominium property managers) will likely mean an increase in common expenses for most condominium corporations in Ontario.

In my view, common expenses can be expected to increase for at least three reasons:

1. There will be added burden on condominium property managers – for various new procedures and requirements under the Condominium Act. Condominium management fees should therefore increase.

2. Condominium managers will also be faced with annual licensing fees and other expenses under the new licensing requirements – which of course will need to be passed on to condominium corporations.

3. Condominium corporations will be required to make payments to the new Condominium Authority of Ontario – which payments are currently estimated to be somewhere between $1 and $3 per unit per month.

It’s difficult to know what sort of common expense increase this will mean for a given condominium corporation, but there seemed to be general agreement at the conference that the amount will be somewhere between $5 and $10 per unit per month.

This raises the following question:  Should condominium corporations mention this (now) in the status certificates? 

In my view, this might not be necessary (because such increases will result from circumstances that are public knowledge); but I still feel that the safe thing is to add wording to the status certificates (paragraph 12) along the following lines:

The corporation has no knowledge of circumstances that may result in an increase in the common expenses for the unit except:

The Protecting Condominium Owners Act, 2015, will bring some important changes to condominium law and administration in Ontario, including changes to the Condominium Act, as well as mandatory licensing for condominium property managers.  As a result, condominium management fees are expected to increase.  Also, condominium corporations will be required to make payments towards the new Condominium Authority of Ontario.   These matters are expected to result in an increase in the common expenses, and the increase is currently estimated at between $5.00 and $10.00 per unit per month. 

These changes are expected to come into force in phases, from 2017 – 2019.

Condominium corporations might also want to let their owners know about these coming increases.

Stay tuned to Condo Law News for more blogs about amendments to the Condominium Act and upcoming events .