09/29/2017
If an individual unit has a one per cent common expense allocation, that means that the unit is responsible for one per cent of the common expenses for the entire corporation for the year, typically payable in equal monthly amounts on the first day of each month.
Often, common expenses will correspond to the square footage of a unit - larger units pay a greater amount. But, there is no requirement under the Act for this to be the case: the developer is free to set common expenses as it sees fit, and other considerations may be used to set common expense percentages (a unit on a higher floor may pay more than a unit of equivalent size on a lower floor).
The common expenses for a condominium are based on a budget that is approved by the corporation’s board of directors, often with the assistance of the corporation’s property manager. Typically, two or three months before the end of a fiscal year, the board will discuss the next year’s budget and distributes to each owner a notice setting out each unit’s contribution to the common expenses for the coming year. Typically, the amount that the corporation collects is equal to the anticipated expenses as set out in the budget, although some corporations may budget for either a slight surplus (in order to create a contingency fund, for example) or for a slight deficit (if there are surplus funds from prior years that can be used for the coming year’s operating expenses).
Different corporations include different items in the common expenses. One corporation’s common expenses might cover hydro, gas and cable television, while in another those items might all be individually metered and charged to the units.
Some of the condominium's expenses will be out of the corporation’s control (items like utilities or fixed-price service contracts), while other expenses will be variable from year to year and, to some extent, discretionary (minor maintenance and repairs).
If you have questions about how their condominium corporation spends its money, many of those questions can be easily answered. Ensure you see the annual audited financial statement for the condominium corporation, - it is provided to all of the unit owners before the annual general meeting, and about which the unit owners could have asked questions at the annual general meeting. For those owners who might not attend their annual general meeting, or for prospective unit owners who are considering purchasing a unit, the statement give a great illustration of how the condominium corporation might spend its money.