November 2021
Does your condo board trumpet their success at not raising condo fees? Do they boast or take pride in limiting any increase to no more than one or two percent? Prepare yourself because something is drastically wrong with your board and how it operates. This is not an accomplishment but a disaster in the making.
Math is a funny thing. Ignoring reality does not make it disappear. Eventually there is a cost to ignorance and your community is likely to pay this price as residents at Champlain Towers in Florida learned when their building collapsed. For them, and all other condominium communities, keeping fees low is not something to brag about.
There is no disputing that insurance costs are going up along with the cost of maintenance and repairs, utilities, staff salaries and contracts. COVID has further increased the cost of cleaning, supplies, equipment and virtually everything else purchased by your corporation. The future cost of everything in your reserve fund study has increased.
With all these cost increases, any community failing to increase condo fees has few options available to them. They can choose to cut back necessary expenditures on your home. There may be special assessments every few years to cover the deficit. If there are unexpected, or unexpectedly high expenditures at an “inopportune” time, a dire need for cash may require a loan. These are your options and none of them are good.
If your community fails to increase fees every year to maintain your home, without a clearly legitimate explanation, they may be waiting for it to fall apart.
Don’t wait for your windows to leak, heating to fail, elevators to break down or pest infestations to proliferate before replacing a condo board failing to maintain your home.
