When you buy into a strata, you’re buying into an apartment or townhouse, you’re buying into a building, you’re buying into a business, and you’re buying into an asset. Most buyers are aware of these things, and do their due diligence by inspecting the unit they’re buying, inspecting the common areas of the building, and reviewing the financial statements.
What they don’t realize is that they are buying into a community with other people, and of course do absolutely no due diligence when it comes to who their neighbours are going to be. Of course there are privacy laws and other reasons for this, but would you start a new job without checking out who you’re going to be working with, or hire an employee without doing a reference check?
Most strata buildings have at least one or two owners who make life miserable for the rest. Some certainly have more, and thankfully some have none, but most have at least one or even two. They can be relatively harmless, to downright problematic for Council and the other owners. We’ve seen cases of owners with mental health issues causing the strata to spend significant sums of money on legal fees, which ultimately leads to higher than normal strata fees. Sometimes these problematic owners are noted in the minutes, but more often than not they are not for privacy reasons.
To summarize, new condo buyers should do their homework about who the other owners are prior to buying into a building. This may be more difficult and take more sleuthing than simply ordering condo documents, but may be well worth it, and could potentially stop you from buying into a building full of troublemakers!
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