How Much will the Condo Authority Cost and Who will Pay for it?
This summer, the Condo Authority of Ontario published the fees it proposed to charge users to finance its operations Condo Adviser conducted an informal survey to see what you think about them. Here are some of our results.
Proposed fees to finance and operate the CAO
As of September 1, 2017, the Condo Authority of Ontario will be the designated Condo Authority in Ontario. Its mandate will be to provide education and condominium-related information and to oversee the Condo Authority Tribunal. Naturally, these entities will require funds to operate. Earlier this month, the CAO published the fees it proposes charging for its services:
- $12 per unit, per year – collected by condo corporations;
- $25 filing fees for parties wishing to access the Tribunal’s online dispute resolution system where they can negotiate in a neutral forum and resolve their dispute;
- $50 for the services of a dedicated Tribunal’s mediator who will attempt to settle the dispute in a collaborative manner between the parties;
- $125 to get a formal adjudication of the dispute by a member of the Tribunal.
Our Own Survey Results
For fun and to get a conversation going, we conducted a Survey on the topic. Below are some of the results.
Who should pay for the CAO?
We asked our readers who they feel should finance the CAO and CAT:
36% of you were of the view that it was fair to impose these costs on condo owners as they were the ones benefiting from these services
40% of you were of the view that the province should finance this services, the same way it finances entities such as the Landlord and tenant board/tribunal and other such tribunals and commissions
24% of you were of the view that the actual users of these services should pay for these services.
Is the $1 per unit / per month fee reasonable?
We asked our readers how they felt about the proposed universal fee of $1 per unit, per month:
60% of you were of the view that it was reasonable
28% of you were of the view that it was too high
12% of you expected it to be more
How do you expect this fee will evolve over time?
Finally, we asked our readers how they expected this universal fee to evolve over time:
57% of you expected it to increase over time
43% of you expected it to remain the same and to be sufficient to finance the CAO’s activities
*It is important to note that the above are not the results of the CAO’s survey. These only reflect the answers received to our informal survey. Also note that we keep updating the above figures as new results come in. So the above percentages may change over the next few days as more of you take our survey.