Why do condo fees vary so much?

Condo fees vary for multiple reasons. It is based on your square footage. Let’s just say the condo corporation says “We need $3 million a year to do the snow maintenance, the roof or window, or landscaping and repainting the yellow lines in the parking lot and paying the security etc.”. It gets divided out what that equals per square foot.

Let’s just say you’re in 1000 square foot unit, and so somebody else in 1000 square foot unit, but it’s run by a different condo corporation, the one might have insurance for $3 million, the other one might only have insurance of $1 million, the one might have had a lawsuit, the other one might not have had a lawsuit, the one might pay 80,000 a year for landscaping, the other one might only pay 12,000 a year for landscaping, etc.

That is why it could be different, but you can look into all that. Make sure a lawyer checks the status certificate so they can see if there are any pending lawsuits. Do they have $0 in the reserve fund? Or do they have a million dollars in the reserve fund etc. The lawyer can walk you through all of that to see what makes sense, what doesn’t and so. Like, “Hey, this place is pretty old”, “They have no money for windows, no money for new boiler systems, no money for new roof, etc.”

You’ll probably get hit with a special assessment, which means “Hey, we didn’t run the condo very well. We don’t have enough money. By the way, You owe us extra money.”