It was exciting for me to get to work this year on a story I’ve wanted to do for more than a decade: What is going to happen to Vancouver’s condo buildings at the end of their lives?
I thought that perhaps I might be only imagining there could be problems when 150 people and five retail owners have to decide what to do about a $20-million building. But, when I started making calls, not only did people confirm that there were lots of potential problems, but they told me about unpleasant scenarios that were beyond my wildest speculation.
My story is here and I won’t recapitulate all the points, but I’ll just highlight the fact that we all seemed to have rushed into this new form of ownership on the assumption that everything would just work itself out down the road.
The condo boom changed Vancouver, though it’s not the only city where it happened. As I discovered in Honolulu when I was there in December, condos flourished there starting in the late 1950s. We stole/copied our condo legislation from Australia. And the mainland U.S. was, of course, in on the wave early.
It was a new form of ownership that helped reverse the decline of central cities. When apartment owners could only rent, then the dense inner cities were the dominion only of renters. People who wanted to own, as so many did in the post-war years, HAD to move to the suburbs. The possibility of condo ownership brought some of them back.
(Some might argue it’s also what is destroying affordability in the city, as renters are constantly threatened by the possibility that their building could be stratified or sold and redeveloped. Vancouver’s put a moratorium on that kind of activity for the hundreds of 1970s four-storey walk-ups in the city, but that can’t last forever.)
But to imagine that condo ownership is just like single-family or even duplex home-ownership is to be blind. There are complications that are only beginning to surface. The province moved last year to fix at least one of them. By the end of this year, strata councils will be required to provide statements outlining the condition of the building and future maintenance that will need to be done, along with a clear statement about what reserves are in place to do that.
At least, then, when people buy, they’ll have a better idea of the condition of the whole building. But it’s still not going to solve the problems of many of the people I encountered when I was researching this story. That’s going to take a whole lot more work.
36 responses so far ↓
1 Gord // Mar 5, 2012 at 9:00 pm
The basic problem with strata councils are that they are made up of people; and people tend to be dishonest when trying to protect their assets. We bought into our place in Marpole, the strata minutes indicated it had been inspected and cleared, our own inspector couldn’t find water damage at his level of inspection. But within a few years, it all came out. A few people must have known, some of them moved away ….. and we had to pay $28,0oo … all of our savings and had to borrow. All because people are not honest.
2 Kirk // Mar 5, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Getting any kind of maintenance to pass a vote is hard too. A lot of new buildings are majority investor owned now, and many just want to flip, meaning that they vote down as much maintenance work as possible. Hopefully, things will play out okay with the new laws.
3 Guest // Mar 5, 2012 at 9:54 pm
The crazy condo market has turned things upside down – there was a time when condos were considered depreciable assets – that their value would remain the same or go down as they aged….
4 gasp // Mar 5, 2012 at 10:34 pm
” . . . but I’ll just highlight the fact that we all seemed to have rushed into this new form of ownership on the assumption that everything would just work itself out down the road.”
And this is just one of the reasons why I would never buy a condo.
Another is that condos are not now, and never have been, “affordable housing”. Besides the outrageous purchase prices for these little boxes, one also has to pay condo fees, taxes and sometimes even lease payments – all of which will continue to rise endlessly. Plus, of course, all the “special assessments” for needed repairs – since most of the high rise buildings will need to be completely refit in 20-25 years.
Condos were developed so that the maintenance, taxes and other costs would be transferred to condo unit “owners”. Note that after condos came along, few rental buildings were built, since few building owners/builders wanted to be responsible for ongoing maintenance.
This, in turn, resulted in developers having less concern for building good quality buildings. Few of the purpose built high rise rental buildings in Vancouver in the 1950′s to 1970′s have leaked, or needed new windows or a new building envelope, whereas owners of high rise condos are often hit with these costs within 10 years of the building being built.
IMO, condos are a lousy investment and a lousy form of home ownership. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize this until after they sign on the dotted line.
5 Sean Antrim // Mar 5, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Is there any insight as to what’s happened in the United States? Condo legislation was implemented there in 1961, before ours was. It’s interesting that the crash happened in the US a little shy of fifty years after the condo phenomenon hit them, probably when many of the first buildings were falling apart, and that now we’re coming up on (what some would call) similar financial conditions in our housing market, a few years after their crash, and have our condos ending their lifespan. I’m not saying that we’re headed for disaster here (except in unaffordability!), but thought it was interesting that you called it a coming *legal* apocalypse.
Is Vancouver, once again, ‘exceptional’? If so, a comparison to Singapore might make sense. Did you choose Singapore instead of the United States for a particular reason?
6 Edward // Mar 5, 2012 at 11:25 pm
At the risk of sounding smug, we did not “all” rush into this new form of ownership. While many of my acquaintances were rushing to sign up for absurd mortgages for tiny boxes overlooking dumpsters, I happily refrained, secure in the knowledge that I was never going to get a $40,ooo assessment for my share of a new roof. Nor was I ever going to feel trapped in my tiny box because all of my neighbours – who dominate the strata council – felt compelled to adopt yappy purse dogs with extreme separation anxiety, leaving me to listen to endless barking as I read the legal notice that I’m in trouble because I have window curtains that are an unapproved shade of taupe.
Thanks but no thanks. I’m happily renting, and instead of giving a bank $300,000 in interest for my $300,000 mortgage over 25 years, I’m investing that money in my savings. Seems a better bet.
7 RH Zhang // Mar 6, 2012 at 1:17 am
Turn every building into a co-op apartment. It would solve all these troubles because a building can be operated as a corporation, where every tenant owns a share rather than an unrealistically divisible unit. The Dakota in Manhattan (where John Lennon was shot) still stands healthy after 132 years, because it’s a co-op.
8 ThinkOutsideABox // Mar 6, 2012 at 1:41 am
I’m not sure what there is to appear smug about as a renter. Savings is generating a grand fortune of what 2%? Meanwhile keep an eye on the mail, or the envelope slipped under your door containing the notice of rent increase because this year it will be up to 4.3%.
As well, after 25 years the mortgage on the box will be almost nothing if not paid off, meanwhile the rent on the unit assuming a miserly rent increase averaging 3% over that period will have doubled.
Then where will you be if not in a STIR 320 sq. ft. box because that’s all that $2032 a month can afford?
Anyway, the split between ownership occupancy and rental in Vancouver is about 50%, so for every anecdote pulling in one direction, there is an equal and opposite anecdote pulling in the other.
It should also be noted that Vancouver (and perhaps generally in BC?) seems to have an unusually low monthly condo maintenance fee, whereas in Ontario it’s not unusual to see the fee at two to three times as much.
What that means is come time to replace a roof or renovate the pool/amenity space, whatever, following a vote of the condo association (strata), the cost is paid for from the $1,000,000+ contingency reserve instead of a special assessment without anyone batting an eye.
9 Julia // Mar 6, 2012 at 9:59 am
I was on council for a while at my old strata corporation. The contingency fund was poor and we were ultimately facing an envelope failure – just after the government discontinued its loan program.
When I questioned the logic of not having appropriate reserves I was told many of the existing owners would be long gone by the time the contingency reserve would be required so ‘let the new guys pay’. It did not seem to hamper sales so that is the route they took.
That mentality had me list and sell about 12 months before being hit with a $45,000 assessment to fix the building.
10 Michael Kluckner // Mar 6, 2012 at 11:39 am
The new requirement in the Condo Act for buildings to have depreciation plans will help the forever-deferred-maintenance problem; as I understand it, a lot of the non-profit coops also have big problems ahead because they haven’t done adequate maintenance and, especially, because they haven’t put enough money into sinking funds to pay for necessary improvements. This is less a problem with the for-profit coops aka apartment corporations, where every shareholder is of like mind, at least in theory.
The Vancouver problem is, as always, the belief that there will be an upzoning and a demolition, with a big cash-out, someone in the near future. Coupled with the low rents, there is little incentive for investors to maintain their buildings — their end profit will be capital gain. When I say “low rent,” Vancouver is unbelievably cheap compared with Sydney, Oz, where I lived recently; rents are about 50% higher for properties there which sell for about the same as Vancouver’s.
11 Bill Lee // Mar 6, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Madame Bula said “My story is here and I won’t recapitulate all the points.” 1868 words
vanmag.com/Real_Estate/Should_You_Sell_Your_Vancouver_Condo_Today?page=0%2C0
vanmag.com/print/6393 for all in one page.
Uses Cypress Gardens in Westview, North Shore as example of legal and construction battles over a 50 year-old housing complex of townhouses (row or terrace housing in other parlance)
One resident said “What I see is that we Canadians have never foreseen the consequences of living together in a common property. We don’t have a system that allows people to understand what to do at the end of their unit’s life.”
Tony Gioventu, president of B.C.’s Condo Homeowners Association. “We have a number that are coming up to the point where it’s not worth renovating them. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are up to 3,000 buildings up for redevelopment in the next five to 10 years.”
The province’s first strata project was a 1968 Arthur Erickson-designed complex on 40 acres in Port Moody.
The 2006 census showed 37 percent of people in Vancouver were owner-occupiers. (An unknown number more are renter-occupiers.) By 2009, there were 95,000 units in 4,100 strata-titled buildings, according to UBC professor Douglas Harris…
When Cam McKechnie, a lawyer for the pro-sale side, suggested it wouldn’t be much of a hardship to live somewhere besides North Vancouver—“My lord, what’s the problem with living in Burnaby?”—he was met with bitter laughter. Ruiz’s allegation that Polygon was “behind all this” and would manipulate the owners into accepting the lowest price set off waves of facial contortions.
Seems to me to be a bunch of land speculators looking at low-rises they can sort-of evict for huge towers in better neighbourhoods.
The Heather Place fiasco is also rather sad.
http://www.straight.com/article-612366/vancouver/heather-place-may-face-rezoning
where mixed income groups live near the hospital area and are being tossed out by the GVRD.
12 rf // Mar 6, 2012 at 12:54 pm
This classic line that I always here at strata meetings from elderly owners (most of whom are long ago mortgage free);
“I can’t afford $20,000! And I’m not taking out a line of credit to pay for repairs! I’ve never paid a dime of interest in my life and I’m not starting now”.
But they sure keep the complaints rolling in about the condition of the building.
If only you could fund building maintenance with complaint letters and griping.
13 City Observer // Mar 6, 2012 at 2:29 pm
The Agency for Co-operative Housing recently required the Co-op in which I live to conduct a Building Condition Assessment Report (the Co-op is just shy of 30 years old).
Working ‘co-operatively’ with the Co-op’s Executive, Finance and Maintenance Committees, the Agency directed our Co-op to 1) ensure that sufficient monies are placed in the Replacement Reserve Fund, each year, going forward, and 2) draft a 20-year ‘building functionality plan’ that will ensure not only the ongoing structural integrity of the apartment-style, condo-like building in which we live, but the ‘livability’ of the co-op, as well.
As a consequence of the above, and upon completion of the Building Assessment, the Co-op drafted an inclusive ‘replacement renovation’ strategy that — in addition to monies spent recently on the re-piping of the building, and the repair and upgrade of the roof, deck and inner courtyards, not to mention the ongoing annual regular building maintenance — will ensure the safety, integrity and livability of the co-op building for many years to come.
Although, initially when the Agency made their demand of us there was opposition expressed (the report itself cost $8000), once the building assessment was completed, and the replacement / renovation plan drafted, I think it’s fair to say that Co-op members as a whole came to feel much better about the prospects for the livability and integrity of our ‘home’ going forward. A painful and time-consuming process but, in the end, propitious.
14 tf // Mar 6, 2012 at 4:32 pm
I too live in a co-op and, due to a financial arrangement made 30 years ago, we share our property with a Strata corporation – which in retrospect, is NOT a smart idea.
Without going into detail, we’ve discovered the main difference between the two is – “the Co-op works for housing and the Strata works for profit.”
The difference in values is reflected in every area of operation, including maintenance planning. The Strata chooses a paint job for a quick resale while the Co-op has to choose structural repair. Co-op members choose mediation while Strata owners choose legal action.
I guess you can tell which I have chosen.
Again, an interesting subject for discussion. Thanks Frances.
15 Dan Cooper // Mar 6, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Happily, my strata building (where I am on the board) seems to be working out quite well at present. Everyone seems to agree on the need for maintenance, etc. and etc. Yay, so far.
One note/question in regard to the requirement for a contingency plan: I have heard from a professional source in the field (I am by no means an expert myself) that these plans must be written by one of a small group of engineers who exist in BC in insufficient numbers to actually write plans for every strata by the deadline. Anyone have more info or thoughts on this?
Someone mentioned co-ops. In many ways I would have loved to have bought into a co-op when I moved to Vancouver some years back, but sadly it is almost impossible to find one that allows children. (I have often heard references to many New York co-op buildings requiring would-be owners to petition/beg for the right to buy, with the potential of being denied for any reason or none.) Changing every strata to an equity co-op would only work if the law was changed to outlaw discrimination based on age, at least, unlesss it was simply decided that in Vancouver only people who have the million dollars it takes to buy a tear-down will be able to raise children.
16 Morry // Mar 6, 2012 at 4:58 pm
So what happens after 20-30 years and the building is not worth renovating? With a house you have your property value. And you can begging to do your repairs slowly over a number of years etc. What do you have with a building ? Who is going to tear it and down and rebuild it? What will you get out of a downed building in terms of equity.
It seems to me that when a building is a tear down your measly equity is going to be peanuts …
A looming tragedy in the works …
17 Bill McCreery // Mar 6, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Morry, normally a 20-30 year olds building is not a tear down. In fact even wood frame structures can last hundreds of years. The oldest farm house in Victoria near U Vic dates to about 1834. It sounds like one faction of the Cypress Gdns. folks share your idea of throwaway buildings. Maybe they should do a deal something like this with Polygon:
1) all of those who want to sell to Polygon do and in sufficient numbers;
2) The holdout owners are moved into newly updated existing units if they are willing to pay for the upgrade, or into a block or 2 of units at one end that are left as is;
3) this is done so that Polygon can carve out a portion of the site for redevelopment;
4) then, Polygon does their redevelopment and sells them and the upgraded townhouses, which should sell at a good price.
I bet there’s a dollar there and it can be a win-win-win. I’m applying for the project manager position with Polygon to do this project. It’d be an innovative, challenging project. I’m looking for that kind of thing at the moment.
18 Kirk // Mar 6, 2012 at 8:58 pm
This article is a little old, but still relevant. I would even dare to say it’s not just low income owners, but any owners who are either financially maxed out or are just hoping to flip.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/globe-to/faulty-towers-the-hidden-dangers-of-low-condo-maintenance-fees/article2030464/
19 A Dave // Mar 6, 2012 at 11:32 pm
When I read Frances’ article, and in light of Kirk’s link above, I thought immediately of the “affordable” condos at 60 W. Cordova St., where “the residents will eventually be responsible for their own building maintenance to reduce the monthly strata and maintenance fees for the building upkeep…. Each unit is thereby much cheaper as there is no need to dig deeper.”
20 Morry // Mar 7, 2012 at 8:38 am
@Bill McCreery i hope I didn’t leave the impression that am in for throw-away buildings !
I think it’s a crime that these buildings aren’t planned to last 200-300 yrs.
21 Hansel // Mar 7, 2012 at 9:08 am
Here’s a well documented truth – Renters are those who tend to have less income than buyers. And, if you’ve rented over the past 10 years in Vancouver, you’ve missed out on one of the biggest bull markets in Real Estate in this city. So any renter on here saying they are glad they pissed away their money is a fool. My home in the suburbs is wood and it’s 89 years old so iff you think my brand new condo in downtown Vancouver is going to need to be decommissioned in 40 years, your are CRAZY. It may require $5-10K in repairs every 10-15 years.
22 Morven // Mar 7, 2012 at 9:28 am
In my brief experience with strata council management (many years ago), I was struck how rarely do councils seek independent outside advice. Instead, they usually followed the advice of the strata management firm who were never required to disclose any conflicts of interest.
Are things any better now and are there broad guidelines for councils to manage the risk and uncertainties ? (when I was there, every council member was an instant expert on building envelopes. This was unnerving),
23 brilliant // Mar 7, 2012 at 10:41 am
@Dan Cooper 15-The ability of a coop to control who moves in is one of its best features. I still recall my first condo where the hooker living in one of the investor-owned unions had a bad trip and opened the fire hose connection on the sixth floor, flooding everything below.
24 brilliant // Mar 7, 2012 at 11:19 am
Oops, should be “units” not “unions”.
25 Sean Bickerton // Mar 7, 2012 at 11:35 am
And the condo-bashing continues unabated! The only affordable housing in the city and people continue to bash it …
One could do a similar article about single family homes in Vancouver – after canvassing a great deal of the city last year, I was surprised at the deteriorating condition of our city’s housing stock. It would practically write itself:
“Wooden homes deteriorating!”
“Residents unable to afford their taxes!”
“Pensioners forced to sell!” etc., etc.
Using worst case scenarios and outliers – a 3 person coop – does not equate in any way to a large or even terribly serious problem.
Condos are communes – people share land ownership, decide things democratically, make their own rules and share expenses in the most egalitarian way possible.
And by law, all condos have contingency reserves equal at least to 25% of their annual budget or mandator contributions are required.
Further, owners care enough about their own homes and their investment that they tend to do the smart thing in managing that balance between keeping costs down and maintaining value.
Lastly, the government has now mandated the maintenance studies cited above that ensure a life-of-building maintenance plan.
At Paris Place in Tinseltown, our budget remains balanced, our contingency fund is full and we have an aggressive maintenance plan for the entire building developed and followed long before any government mandate.
And together we continue doing everything necessary to ensure a long, happy future for our unique communal home, right next door to transit, a five-minute walk from downtown, and the lowest GHG emissions p/person in North America.
26 Frank Ducote // Mar 7, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Sean@25 – as a fellow owner/resident in Paris Place, I couldn’t agree more with your comments. I’ve lived here for 16 years and find that the building and amentiies are incredibly well-managed and maintained, and also quite affordable, as you note. All this and a walk-score of 98%, about as high as it can get.
27 Dan Cooper // Mar 7, 2012 at 2:51 pm
@23 brilliant (Mar 7, 2012 at 10:41 am)
I’m not arguing with you! but rather you prove my point. Indeed, it could be lovely in its way to live in a place where you can discriminate against anyone for any reason (or as I note before, no reason) and everyone looks and thinks and acts exactly like you (*). Then again, everyone has to live somewhere, so if EVERY strata in Vancouver changed into a co-op as proposed in the post to which I was responding, and those co-ops all discriminated in the classic New York way, then by definition much of the current population of Vancouver would have to move somewhere else. If the unacceptable – meaning prostitutes and drug dealers and people with children and people who work in declasse jobs and people who don’t belong to the right clubs – cannot buy anything anywhere in Vancouver…well, that would be a very interesting situation! Probably have some curious economic effects, too.
(* Yes, this is a jest.)
28 Devore // Mar 7, 2012 at 4:16 pm
@ThinkOutsideABox: Well, stop assuming, and start using actual numbers. Rent rising 4.3%? Average rent increase over 10 years of 3%? I don’t know which Vancouver you live in, but no one’s rent is going up 4.3%, or even 3% for that matter, unless you’re already paying well under market rent. UBC’s Sauder business school has a survey of rental prices, among other things, and according to them, real rents in Vancouver have been FALLING over the last 10 years, meaning they’re less than inflation, meaning less than 3%.
Regardless of the long term economics you propose, it is never a good idea to buy something very expensive, and then ride it out until you can say 20 years later you are finally better off than someone who rented their housing all along instead. Just buy when it’s cheaper than or comparable to renting to begin with, and reap the rewards from day 1. Otherwise, save your money and put it towards something more productive. And stop spreading the fear and paranoia, you can do much better than 1%.
As for condos, massively overpriced in terms of what you are getting, then add in condo fees and the inevitable special assessments to add insult to injury. Condos should never approach SFH in price. It is an ownership structure fraught with risk and uncertainty, with huge liability potential. People have gone bankrupt over condo special assessments. I don’t know anyone who lost everything because the roof over their house had a leak somewhere.
29 ThinkOutsideABox // Mar 7, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Here you go:
http://www.tenants.bc.ca/main/?rentincreases
How much can my landlord raise rent?
The allowable rent increase for 2012 is 4.3%. For more information on allowable rent increases, visit the Residential Tenancy Branch website.
How much have landlords been allowed to raise rent in recent years?
2011: 2.3%
2010: 3.2%
2009: 3.7%
2008: 3.7%
2007: 4.0%
2006: 4.0%
2005: 3.8%
2004: 4.6%
Landlord campaign to raise rate of rent increase
Landlords in BC are lobbying to raise the allowable rate of rent increases each year. TRAC would like to inform tenants about the dangers of this campaign and reasons we feel it is unwarranted…
–
But whatever, let’s not trouble ourselves with whatever that all means. It’s all a ruse that just masks the real rents.
The real rents are where it’s at, and apparently falling, which is great news. The mayor’s housing affordability task force can just pack it up and move onto something else now because voilà, there is no real housing affordability problem!
30 Adam Fitch // Mar 8, 2012 at 8:42 am
This is agreat article, very important issue. Lots of great comments, too. Also lots of uninformed comments.
The point about 100% agreement with a course of action for a strata corp is the most important point. This is a recipe for disaster – every strata owner forced to make a very important decision, in a limited timeframe, whether they want to make a decision or not.
Of course, they are lobbied by both sides, with miisinformation, exageration, etc. It is definitely a bloodsport that most buyers did not bargain for. It is a set-up for agreesion and competitiveness – winner-take-all, because of the black-and-white nature in which the issue is framed; no opportunity for concensus-building, compromise, or innovation.
But I do not think that lowering the threshold to 80 or 90 percent would solve things. It just moves the target at which the aggressors have to aim. Some form of mandatory mediation or binding arbitration would be helpful, I think, to focus people on achieveing a result.
31 Rita // Mar 8, 2012 at 10:09 am
Friends of mine asked me why I was staying in my home which is large and with a large garden, when they were moving out of their large home and moving into a condo. I told them about how I felt about strata councils and strata fees. The amount that it would cost me for strata fees each month as I age I could hire a housekeeper to keep my home clean and a gardener to clean my garden Spring and Fall. A year or two later I met them again and sure enough had sold their condo and were building a new home. My point is I feel the way it was with Condos being for renters where the Developer was responsible for maintenance and knowing that ahead of time would build to better standards was the way it should have stayed. This is a great article and am anxious to see where it goes now.
32 Max // Mar 8, 2012 at 1:59 pm
I have a place in Kits -in an older 80′s building. There are 20 units total with retail in the bottom, very little turn over in ownership (I’ve had some of the same neighbors for 19 years) – 5 max rental units.
We have always kept up on maintenance as it comes along. Last year, a new roof, some piping work, carpeting and painting the inside. The balconies have been sytematically replaced/repaired and the outside painted etc.
Yes, it costs money. But at the end of the day, my intital investment has tripled in value.
You won’t get that kind of return from a bank.
33 Gordon Cavanaugh // Mar 9, 2012 at 1:32 pm
The big misconception of the commentators is that it has to do with the building getting older. It isn’t about age or condition or type of ownership- its about economics. One day in the future, the underlying land value will be greater than the combined value of the strata units. That can happen simply because the site is not developed to its Highest and Best use.
34 Michael Geller // Mar 10, 2012 at 3:34 pm
“Different strokes, for different folks”
I am a bit surprised, and disappointed by the intolerance being exhibited in some of the above comments. The fact is, for some rental is the best answer; for others, condominium living cannot be beat; for still others, an individually owned house or fee-simple rowhouse is the only way to go; and others swear by co-ops.
There is no one right answer; but as Frances and others have pointed out, there can be serious problems with poorly built and managed condominiums.
Last year, when I helped my daughter purchase a condominium, I was prompted to write about the experience. Of particular interest was whether to hire an inspector, and if so, what was the appropriate scope for the inspection.
This prompted me to surmise that every strata council might be wise to undertake an inspection of its exterior and common areas on a fairly regular basis.
This, combined with an adequate replacement reserve fund would likely reduce some of the potential problems down the road.
For those of you who live in a condo, or are thinking of buying one, I hope this might be of interest.
http://gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com/2011/08/buying-condo-should-you-get-inspection.html
35 Bill McCreery // Mar 10, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Good point Michael:
“… every strata council might be wise to undertake an inspection of its exterior and common areas on a fairly regular basis”.
Having seen the procrastination that happens typically in the majority of ‘leaky condo’ failures over the years, if the Strata Act required condos to create and maintain a capital reserve fund which has predetermined amounts in it at key stages, say 5, 10 and 20 years, and then do those regular inspections, it would no doubt encourage them to deal with repairs when they come up, and not 3 to 10 years too late when the damage has become many times more costly to repair. It might be worthwhile for the legislative changes to also clarify that the strata has a duty to proactively complete such repairs in a timely and sufficient manner.
36 Christie // Mar 17, 2012 at 10:53 am
I appreciate Rita’s comment about her decision to move to a house rather than a condo. The situation with condos is becoming unbearable not only in Vancouver but also in Toronto where more and more throw-away buildings made of glass walls are being built. They’ll last 15 to 25 years and will need retrofits costing millions of dollars. As you said in your story: “Problems will snowball as the massive buildout of the 1990s and 2000s times out.” So the problems are starting to emerge and by the time of 15 – 20 years we’re going to face these issues on a regular basis. You should always consider lifespan of your home and its components when buying one. A detached house may demand considerable investment of money and time but it pays back. Plus, you don’t have to deal with strata councils and rely on other people’s irresponsibility and dishonesty.
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