Condominium

Professional Vs Self-Management: Pay Now or Pay Later

The old adage “you get what you pay for” can too often be true in the negative sense and worse, you may even be paying far too much when you don’t pay for what you need. It’s a complex matter that involves not knowing what you don’t know and one which fortunately, has some acceptable options.

This question involves the decision to be self-managed or to engage a professional condominium manager. Generally, we see this reserved more and more, for smaller properties with limited budgets; but even so, this requires a very careful look at what’s at stake. There is always danger when you aren’t aware of what you don’t know. If you think you know what you’re doing, please be sure you have Errors and Omissions coverage and that your Director’s and Officer’s insurance is up to date.

Two main influences are becoming more common: first, many of the retired residents in condominiums are moving to other accommodations and second, more households need to have more than one income; both situations result in fewer people who perhaps had the time to look after administering the property in years past. So with fewer people and less time, many necessary issues are not attended to, or worse are being done incorrectly.

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Your Condominium’s Budget: A Guide for the Unenlightened

Budgets can be intimidating documents but they are a pretty critical part of your ownership experience. After all, the Corporation doesn’t have a credit card, so its important to plan accurately for the coming year’s expenses because no one likes to get that Special Assessment letter asking for more money.

While budget formats and contents will vary greatly from property to property, we will address the most basic areas, common to all condominiums. Detailed line items which remain a mystery to you following this brief study should be addressed with the Treasurer of your Board or your Condominium Manager.

The annual budget for any condominium corporation is an Operating Budget. This means that it represents the Plan of the costs anticipated to operate the property for the coming year. The planning is based on budget-to-actual comparisons for the current (and previous) year as well as estimates of any increases or decreases in expenses. The careful review and thorough research, combined with some knowledge of your property and/or adequate experience with similar properties, will produce a relatively accurate reflection of these expenses.

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