@@tylerdurden7142 This is so scary. Makes me think twice (10 times!) about giving up my house and moving to a condo. They must be putting them up too quickly and scrimping on material and safety measures.
@@hreitz4169 No kidding. Many buildings in our neck of the woods have been clad in PLYWOOD for decades. Seriously !? Gotta a match ? The homeless are not just lighting minor fires, several buildings have been burned to the ground.
I've been in construction for over 30 years and you should tell FB who that manager was, so that nobody buys from that company. They are obviously as shotty as the builders in this condo!
I have friends in the trades that tell me the same thing. They tell me builders will spend money on visible things like high end counter tops, expensive light fixtures and faucets, hardwood and marble flooring etc. But to save money they go cheap on anything inside the walls that can't be seen and you end up with things like this video with leaks, broken pipes etc. I also had a coworker in a similar situation. Pipes broke and flooded entire floors. It is a huge mess sorting out how is paying for what and different insurance companies etc.
Of course, clearly the builder cut too many corners at the expense of the owners. The condo owners AND the board should sue the builder not allow the owners to pay any special assessment especially since it's only 7 years old, the building should still be close to brand new condition. I feel the board is clearly incompetent here.
Construction contractor here, from Calgary. Get more quotes!!! Commercial repairs are egregiously expensive because too many contractors are involved in the process. The general contractor gets a quote and the quotes go through 2-4 more contractors. Remember Arrivescam? Project managers that don’t set foot on a project sub out to a subcontractor who in turn subs out. I know this, because my company is a subcontractor. We are the actual contractors who show up to do the work. Our fees then go through 2-3 more companies before it gets to the general contractor (CANA, PCL, Ledcor, EllisDon etc), who then bills the province, provincial health authority, federal government. My bill will start at $10k-$30k and by the time the taxpayers get the bill, it’s now a $100k-$500k bill. It’s why a $150k app turned into $65M and a storage barn in Ottawa cost $9M. To the Condo board of this news story: Get a quote from a Concrete Resurfacing & Repair company, it’s who ends up doing the work anyway 😉
The condo management will get contractors to charge extra and then get payment back from them. Happens all the time with building superintendents and management's.
Only 7 years old? Isn't there a 10-15 year warranty for builder defects? No way should there need to be a $7 million repair this soon after completion.
@@syx3s We did a daycare between a twin tower on Expo Blvd. in Vancouver less than 5 years after the build (the Parks Board could NOT make up their mind in over 5 YEARS). Turns out the column we were to tie the elevator to was a METRE off! We did a double column!!!
The corporation is suing the builder (Decade Homes), but we are still being forced to pay for these repairs. We were told that even if the lawsuit is won, we will not get our 70k back. It will go into the condo reserve fund. Criminal
They will never sell their units. Any prospective buyer will immediately have their lawyer do a title and status certificate search, and this $7 million loan or $70K per unit owner issue will come up immediately.
I had a condo and they asked $5000, due within 2 months. New building and totally out of any money reserves. I sold it, we told the new owners but they still wanted it. My friend had a $60,000 bill on her place. Nope - never owing a condo again.
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Go look at the recent graduates from trade schools and current workforce in the building construction. I guarantee that aftet 10 years there will be leaky condos everywhere in canada. Mark my words.
You own a condo over 5 years start to get ready for cash calls. Many condo associations do not keep enough money. Many also get robbed. 4 or 5 new owners run around snd get proxies. They vote themselves onto board. Then comes the bills as friends companies fix properties with kickbacks.
That’s why I’d never buy a condo again!! I’d bought a condominium townhome years ago and a few months after moving in we get a letter from the board saying we owe 10k towards siding repair!!!???? Never again
That's what happened to me. But there was more warning that it was coming and we had to vote on the type of siding to get. Ended up being almost $28k each. Got three years to pay it off, or take a loan.
Everyone needs to thank the CAO (Condominium Authority Ontario) for all of this. The board should have made sure that this was inspected by Tarion before the time was up! CAO will destroy everyone that lives in condominiums (soon Townhouse Associations) in Ontario! CAO are still making $1 a month per unit per month without lifting a finger!
Condo board members are part of public record. Same with builder documents and permit applications by sub-trades. A little bit of investigation into this report wouldve gone a long way. The reporters should be ashamed
Is there any precedence of condo owners ever successfully utilize that 10 year warranty to cover repair cost? Always sounds reassuring until you need to activate it .
@@my3dviews toronto and edmonton aren't really even comparable when it comes to cost of living. I am born and raised here in toronto, and my aunt pays nearly $1400 per month in maintenance fees for her condo, and its not even downtown , its at yonge and sheppard
@@rdh7393 Ya, I know that Edmonton is much lower than Toronto. Vancouver is high too. Glad that I live here. Cost of living is way lower. For $1400/month I can pay my condo fees and my mortgage payments. Should be paid off in a couple of years, then my cost of living will go way down. :-)
As someone who works in commercial real estate, i can tell you with confidence to avoid buying anything built in the last 10 years in the GTA. Especially highrise, but single family homes are not exempt either. As a rule of thumb, anything built during a boom, is likely going to have some poor craftsmanship.
@@kenny1514 totally agree. As builder start buying marginal land - former gas stations, sites needing remediation come to mind - I can only imagine where the corners are getting cut.
Imagine that. buying a condo outright. at insane prices and end up paying more in fees than it costs to rent an apartment of the same size. one bad tenant can cost you thousands by leaving a tap on, or starting a fire. and the building is only 7 years old. fools.
If someone leaves a tap on or starts a fire, then insurance would have to cover it, not the condo members. The condos as a whole have insurance and each condo needs to be insured as well to cover their own expenses.
@@my3dviews A fire can make a building unlivable this building is new and should not be falling apart already. the tenants should not have to pay anything.
Really bad advice in the toronto market. There are already mechanism in place to protect condo owners. They can go to legal but just like a new home a new condo can have issues.
Balcony glass falling off, rails falling off. Many unit's kitchen plumbing failing, undermounted kitchen and bathroom sinks simply falloff with load, complete floor flooding, concrete barrier seals failing. Seen it all. There is also a reason why developers incorporate a shell corporation everytime they start a new project. So when they do get liable for something, there is no money to be won.
Have an engineering report and assessment of the need for repair and the necessity to spend so much on a bldg which is only seven years old? Has the party which built the condo bldg been contacted, consulted, put on notice? What were the issues which caused the need for this entire proposal.
Get another quote on the cost of the repairs. Or hire an independent engineer to look at the roof and give an assessment of what needs to be done. Is it surface water on the roof that is leaking through cracks? Maybe just redirect the water with drains and pipes and repair the cracks. Before you buy a condo check on how much of a contingency fund they have. Well-managed condos have large contingency funds that take of major work needed to be done. The building is only 7 years old? Why would there be a major issue with the parkade roof? Defective workmanship? Can the condo board go after the original construction company to fix the problem?
Govt must amend the condo board laws to protect the tenants right and specially the big repairs. Even the houses built are having a warranty for structural defects, like in this case.
I am tired of this kind of crap . I have in stalled a metal roof that is warranty for 50 years if the condo is seven hold the builder and designer responsible
Never buy a condo. You never own it. A condo board can vote you out if they don't like you. Or up the condo fee with no warning, not like rent control where you have protection.
There's not a huge amount of Rent control. Where I rent, if I don't like the rent increase, I'm evicted. Even if I take the landlord to court, the landlord still wins.
To start, they should get a 2nd opinion from another engineering firm. If the result is the same, the owners can sue the developer and/or the contractor who built the building.
A friend bought a stacked townhouse condo (similar to what seems to be pictured in this story), and in the winter had leaks from the roof deck into their unit. The response from the property manager was that it was they should have shoveled off the roof. (to where was not specified, as the only spot to throw snow off would be onto the lower walkway 3 stories down). It turned out the flashing detail was not done correctly. A separate leak from the facade into one of the bedrooms took over 18 months to fully resolve, with the drywall being cut back in that area for the entire time.
Stories like this make me NEVER to want a condo. I’ll get an Acorn chair lift installed in my house before ever thinking about buying an overpriced condo.
Doesn't have anything to do with Canada. Florida condos are selling for nothing because of new requirements to assure buildings are safe and condo fees are now sky high.
You own nothing and be happy. With a condo, in reality you don't control the building. You own nothing! The real owner is the bank. But you sign a contract, to pay for " your ownership " the maintenance.
condos maintenance fee almost the same as rent a place. why buying condo and still keep on endless paying fee the rest of our life ?. Sounds like you never own the place
@@tommyli8726 even if you own a home, then a flut or a tornado destroy your home, you loos the home insurance, and the bank take away your land. Or without problems the home insurance show up on your place, you don't cut your brushes or lawn, and they cancell your insurance. Same resultat, the bank take away your home. With every bad weather the insurance bill will go higher.
If you've seen the conditions of the construction industry in the last 10 years you wouldn't want the entire complex for free let alone pay hundreds of thousands for...
That's the difference between renting and owning a condo. Similar thing happened to me several years ago. Had to pay a fairly large sum (not as much as this) over three years to change the siding and decks on the buildings.
It is common for engineering and construction contractors to take advantage of non professional condo boards. Apartments with professional management do not get taken advantage of that easily
Um who exactly are they going to sell it to at this point? One look at the condo certificate and any potential buyer will immediately back out. They're stuck with their condos for a looooong time because even after they fix it, bad rap will stick to this building like a stink.
You can pretty much guarantee that the builder has legally insulated themselves by setting up a separate corporation for that specific development project.
This is consistent problem in Toronto. Underground streams and tributaries run throughout the city. We live in the Great Lakes in case the builder doesn’t already know. If water proofing is determined to be the issue then the tenants will take building management to court and have them extract the money from the shoddy developer
And the contract with be awarded to a friend of the strat and the quote will be 5 times higher than any other companie, this is why i wont buy a condo in canada, there is too many unskilled workers, 3/4 of the condos built in vancouver st this very moment are being built by illegal immigrants
Is there not a warranty still in place if it's only 7 years? Tarion? Insurance policy for new build? Need to ask the board this. Check your sales agreement. Pat, did you ask those questions?
