Paying for repairs to another’s balcony
Our condo board has undertaken a project to redo two balconies. Some units don’t have balconies. Each owner’s contribution to our common expense fund is based on their unit’s inside square footage — and so owners without balconies will, ultimately, end up contributing to the balcony repairs. Isn’t this unfair? Perhaps. The common expense percentages are prepared by the developer. They need not be based on the square footage of each unit, but commonly are.
If the two balconies required repairs, the corporation was required to carry out the repairs and each condo owner is required to share the cost in accordance with the percentages in the declaration, fair or not.
The contribution percentages outlined in the declaration could be changed by an amendment. It requires an affirmative vote of owners of 90 per cent of the units. Even if the 90-per-cent mark were possible, there is little chance of achieving it as owners whose common expense percentages will rise as the result of the amendment are unlikely to vote in favour. Is your advice about secondhand smoke applicable to apartments that are not condominiums? My previous column referred to the section in the Condominium Act that prohibits an activity in a unit, or on the common elements, that is likely to cause injury to an individual. Sorry, but the Condominium Act, including that provision, does not apply to non-condominium apartments. Can our condominium corporation raise our common expense payments by more than the cost of living index? Do owners have the right to see the corporation’s books to view the corporation’s expenditures? The corporation’s common expenses, which all of the owners share, will be whatever its total cost of managing the condominium is, even if the total exceeds a cost of living index.
Owners have the right to examine or receive copies of the corporations records except for records relating to employees of the corporation other than employment contracts, records relating to actual or pending litigation or insurance investigations or records relating to specific units or owners. The corporations books may be examined to the extent they do not reveal any of the aforesaid exceptions. Where does it say in the Condominium Act that condo corporations cannot levy fines against condo owners? There is no specific provision in the act. The courts have held that, in the absence of such a provision, a corporation has no right to do so. Since we pay our share of common expenses, can the corporation charge us additionally for the use of a common-element room for private functions? Such a charge — if specified in the declaration, bylaws or rules — is valid. Lawyer Gerry Hyman is a former president of the Canadian Condominium Institute and author of Condominium Handbook. Send questions to gerry@gerryhyman.com or fax to his attention at 416-925-8492.