Global TV (BC) made a lead story on their news casts this week the probable rise in strata fees due to the deprecation reports that are now required by law to be filed by the end of 2013. They are at least 6 months late with this breaking story and if was proposed in early 2011 as part 2 of the shiny new strata act to be enacted after discussion with stakeholders.

In some cases this may be true but already many stratas have been steadily raising strata fees to build contingency funds to acceptable levels. There are some stratas though that still seem to take great pride in having the lowest strata fees; these are the ones that could see substantial rises in fees. There is an out in the legislation however once the report is done it has to be voted on by the owners and they can decide not to accept the report and not do anything choosing instead to rely on special assessments when ever needed.

This can be very shortsighted though as most buyers will ignore these stratas or severely discount the selling price to take into account the possibility of special assessments. This in my opinion will create a 2 tiered sales market and I can see investors leaning to the assessment model as it is a tax write off for them and can maximize their monthly income by keeping fees low. This will not help resident home owners in these stratas though and potential buyers and their Realtors should steer well clear of these units.

I have found these sites interesting reading for strata owners.

http://strataadvocate.ca/

http://stratawatch.ca/

http://www.choa.bc.ca/

Thinking of buying or selling a strata unit, call (604-727-5385) or e mail me to receive a copy of my strata buyers book or the strata sellers book. Lots of information in these for BC