Check out the Spring 2009 issue of the GMA Condo Alert! newsletter.
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Click here to view the newsletter in PDF.
Our local condo world recently lost one of its most distinguished contributors.
Mark Freedman, a leading member of the property development bar and a widely-respected author and commentator on condo issues, passed away May 9th.
A partner at the Toronto law firm of Harris, Sheaffer LLP, Mark was honoured as a Fellow of the Canadian Condominium Institute and co-winner of this year's Ontario Bar Association Award for Excellence in Real Estate. Mark was also well-known for his good works in the community.
Update: See Bob Aaron's tribute to Mark in this article in the Toronto Star.
Are you kicking yourself over a negotiation with a contractor, owner, or board member that could have gone a little better? Are you looking to improve your bargaining skills?
Check out The New Conflict Management: Strategies for Dealing with Tough Topics & Interpersonal Conflicts, a free report from Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation.
Download that report and sign up for free tips by email here.
[Hat tip to Geoff Sharp at mediator blah...blah...]
A property manager recently asked us how to tactfully approach a unit owner who shows poor hygiene habits (like hacking, sneezing and spitting) in and around the pool or sauna area.
One simple approach we suggested was to print and display some of the handy posters distributed by local health units to promote "cover your cough" and proper hand washing techniques.
In these days of heightened pandemic alert, this type of information can help promote greater health awareness, reduce the spread of germs in common areas, minimize worker absenteeism and help us all breathe easier.
Posters, fact sheets and other flu resources are available from local health units and government agencies. Click the links below to access them.
From a news release issued by Volunteer Canada:
National Volunteer Week was first proclaimed in 1943 as an initiative to draw the public's attention to the vital contribution of women to the war effort on the home front. In the late 1960s, the focus was revived and broadened to include all community volunteers.
National Volunteer Week, the country’s biggest celebration and recognition campaign of volunteers, runs from April 19 to 25. Through the National Volunteer Week website (www.volunteer.ca/nvw), created by Volunteer Canada, hundreds of individuals and organizations have submitted photos and videos of “volunteers in action,” and thousands more have used the site’s resources to plan their own volunteer recognition events.
Take a moment this week to stop and thank the volunteer directors and committee members that take time out of their lives to help make our condominium communities a better place to live and work.
Today is Law Day in Ontario.
Now in its 26th year, Law Day is a national event created by the legal profession to mark the April 1982 signing of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to help inform the public about how the legal system works.
Celebrations and special events are taking place this week across Ontario and from coast to coast, especially in schools. Visit the Ontario Bar Association’s Law Day page for more info and a listing of activities, and check out Connie Crosby’s post on Slaw for links to other resources and events taking place across Canada.
Join the celebrations and find out more about the legal system. While you’re at it, give your lawyer a big hug today.
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In a recent blog post, personal finance diva Gail Vaz-Oxlade reminds homeowners of the need to budget for home maintenance items and be ready for big costs that can arise. Good advice.
Condominium corporations typically prepare their annual budgets with reference to the reserve fund study ("RFS") mandated by section 94 of the Condominium Act. The RFS helps ensure adequate funding for the major repair and replacement of common elements. The Act requires that the RFS contain both a physical analysis of building components (including a component inventory with estimated remaining lifespan for each item) and a financial analysis as to the various costs of each item and a plan for the future funding of the reserve.
The reserve fund study does not, however, provide much guidance about routine maintenance, which leaves condo boards to make their own judgement calls and to pay the cost for such work out of the operating account. As a result, it becomes easy to justify putting off expenditures for routine maintenance when times are tough or the budget is tight.
While deferring simple maintenance might seem like a good short-term solution, that approach may be more costly in the long run.
While her comments were probably directed to owners of freehold houses, Gail says the following which is directly applicable to condo complexes of any description:
"You can skimp on your home maintenance, ignoring the cracking foundation, the rotting deck or the fence that’s falling down only so long. When it finally MUST be done, no doubt it’ll cost three to five times as much as it would have if you’d simply maintained it."
With the good weather soon upon us, condo boards and their managers should inspect their common elements from top to bottom and work with their engineers and contractors to identify components that require preventative work this season.
The following guest entry by local condo director Ernie Nyitrai is a call to action for other condo corporations and unit owners to lobby for amendment to the Assessment Act, which governs the municipal tax assessment regime in Ontario.
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Condominiums, even though they have been around for quite some time in Ontario, have only modestly grown in the past and mostly only in urban areas. However, all that started to change in the late 1980’s when growth in condominium development began to expand. This growth increase almost seemed to double each year. In fact, in many urban areas, especially in the Greater Toronto Area, they have almost come to supplant single-family residences as the preferred form of residential accommodation. MacLeans magazine, in its December 31, 2007 issue, featuring real estate in Canada, postulated that half the people in urban Canada will be living in condos by 2025.
This growth has led many urban municipalities to allocate an ever-increasingly larger proportion of residential building permits to condominium development. Since condominium developments, specifically high-rise condominiums, utilize less land area, they have also become an excellent planning tool for the urban municipality, enabling them to accommodate more people in a smaller land area.
Although this growth in condominium developments has increased, almost exponentially in recent times, one aspect of condominium life has not changed, namely assessment on condos for the purpose of municipal taxes.
Continue Reading...Now that most condo corporations in the Greater Toronto Area are paying for garbage disposal on the basis of volume or weight, it is increasingly important to divert heavy, bulky and recyclable items from the regular garbage stream. Electronic waste (or "e-waste") is a big issue.
A recent story in the Toronto Star summarizes a number of new options for the proper disposal of e-waste such as computers, printers and televisions. Check out the story here.
Then consider things that you can do at your condominium:
Not only does diverting e-waste help your condo corporation's bottom line, it helps protect the environment by keeping heavy metal and toxic waste out of our landfills and allows those components to be recycled.
The proposed Green Energy Act (“GEA”) is moving forward quickly and will be considered in committee later this month. As it now reads, nothing in the GEA contemplates any amendment to the Condominium Act, 1998 (“the Condo Act”).
That may change, but not in a way we would like.
The Toronto Atmospheric Fund (“TAF”), together with a local condo developer and their respective lawyers, made a written submission to the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure on the implementation of the GEA. A copy of the submission is available here. [Hat tip to environmental law blogger Dianne Saxe.]
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