What About North Okanagan Condo Fees

jane-field-vernon-realtor Condo fees/strata fees are monthly levies that each owner must pay to their owner's association, known as the Strata Corporation. Strata fees generally cover grounds maintenance, snow removal on the common areas (generally that means the roadways), insurance on the buildings, liability insurance, maintenance and repair of any recreational facilities such as swimming pool, or clubhouse, contingency reserve funds and in many cases, the water, sewer and garbage.

Originally most townhouse developments were set up to include the water, sewer and garbage. Back in the early to mid 1990's, townhouse projects evolved towards each unit owner being responsible to pay for their own water and sewer usage, just like single family home ownership does. Apartment condos have continued throughout to commonly include them in the strata fees.

When buying a condo or townhouse, you will need to fully understand what your monthly strata fees include vs. expenses you will be responsible to pay on your own.

Earlier, I mentioned a contingency reserve fund. This is a fund required under the Strata Property Act to be maintained by all condo/townhouse projects. Five per cent of every dollar paid in strata fees must be contributed to this fund. The fund is to be used for long term maintenance such as roof replacement. Some condo projects try to keep this fund to an absolute minimum. This can be a mistake. For example, if the time has arrived to replace the roofing, and the contingency fund has insufficient funds to cover that expense, all the individual owners must come up with their share of the bill. That could be significant. Sometimes strata corporations will elect to get a bank loan to cover the expense. This spreads the expense to the owners over the period of the loan. I think the best scenario is that the strata fees be a little higher than the minimum required right from the commencement of the project. That usually assures that the individual owners will not have to put up with those special levies.

Something else about monthly strata fees. Many buyers say to me they are reluctant to buy strata due to the condo fees. Yet, they fail to look at the costs they incur maintaining their houses. Grounds maintenance costs on a house too. Think about what you spend each year in bedding plants, fertilizer, weed killing, lawn aeration, tree sprays and pruning. Sooner or later your roof needs replacing just like roofs do in condo or townhouse projects!

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