The joys of home ownership

I’m still over two months away from moving the first box, and it begins already.

Tuesday my agent got the building’s status report and passed it along to my lawyer, and I heard from him yesterday. There were a couple of things I didn’t like.

First, the condo fees are good for this year, but are estimated to do up about $70 a month next year, apparently to rebuild the contingency fund, because they’re spending $2 million working on the parking garages, 2009-2012. I already thought the fees were high, and this takes them to all the more rarefied air heights. I think I can manage it, but I sure hope they come down a little once the fund’s rebuilt.

Secondly was this stuff about parking spaces. Some homeowners would have to move spots. Some, apparently, would even have to “make other arrangements at their own expense”. This was extremely vague. Bad enough if it meant I’d have to rent a spot somewhere while paying condo fees… but what if it implied a reduction in spots and that I potentially lost my parking spot? Neither one of those agreed with me, especially the idea of the latter, which for me was a definite deal-breaker. Anyway, it was cleared up by my lawyer: the work in the vicinity of my spot was already done, so it’s not an issue in either case. But it’s funny how focused you get when real money’s on the line. This wasn’t something where I figured I’d just cross my fingers and trust my luck – this was something I told the lawyer “I need to know, not guess.”

Oddly enough, I’m still looking forward to this and I really want it all to come together.