CONDO ARCHIVES

Failing to Follow the Rules – The Cost

December 2020

When condo residents fail to follow the rules, everyone pays.  At the extreme are higher monthly fees or special assessments.  Before it reaches that point, management will seek to identify those failing to follow rules through lack of awareness or disinterest.  Once identified these individuals can be assessed the cost of their failure to follow rules.

Some of these costs are surprisingly high.

 

Waste Management

A blocked trash chute can be expensive.  For whatever length of time the chute is blocked all building residents are unable to dispose of their waste.  Someone needs to clear any mattress, Christmas tree or other large items improperly disposed of in the chute.  Once cleared, damaged chutes can cost thousands of dollars to repair.  Clearing and repairing of a trash chute that gets blocked weekly can cost tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a year.

Failure to separate recycling and organics from trash can result in loss of city garbage pick-up.  Private services can cost more than $25,000 per year.

Utilities Abuse

Running heat or air conditioning with open windows or unnecessarily when not at home is expensive.  Allowing water to leak from taps, shower or toilet for days or months on end can increase water use by 20 percent.  Suite metering is a proven way to control costs and monitor for those using excessive amounts of electricity or water.

Where residents fail to follow rules, a condo corporation is within their rights to identify those individuals and take steps to ensure others do not pay the costs of their failure.

Concierge/Security Services

Failing to close a locking door when entering or exiting a building, unlocking the door for someone you don’t know buzzing on the intercom, and creating duplicate keys/fobs and providing to individuals not registered with management are all security risks.  Re-keying an entire building or issuing new fobs can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Smoking – Tobacco or Marijuana

High-rise fires from smoking are a serious problem affecting a growing number of people.  Death or displacement from home for months can result from an improperly discarded butt.  Air quality, odour and other problems permeating through a building from a single suite can affect the health and comfort of many people.  Structural renovations to prevent this, if possible, can be beyond the financial means of a community.

 

Where residents fail to follow rules, a condo corporation is within their rights to identify those individuals and take steps to ensure others do not pay the costs of their failure.  Assessing owners for the cost of failing to follow rules is a right of condo corporations intended to protect everyone.

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