Strata Commission fees — for what?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The simple answer is to pay the salaries and office expenses of the Commission for Strata Corporations (CSC), located within the Real Estate Board on Surbiton Road in Kingston.

My strata complex of six apartments has, since 2010 when fees were first levied, paid over $600,000 of the $900,000 due. While some owners are up to date, there is no reliable way to identify those in breach, since the CSC refuses to acknowledge payments by individual apartments. Instead, all payments are credited to a single account for the entire complex.

The theory is that the complex as a whole bears responsibility, but this ignores the reality that full cooperation among owners is rare — precisely the situation the CSC is meant to address.

Several years ago, we took an owner who refused to pay maintenance fees to the CSC. After considerable effort on our part and a brief hearing, we were granted a Right to Sell the apartment. This was not our objective. We simply wanted enforcement of payment through the CSC and the courts.

Pursuing the sale required two independent valuations costing more than $40,000 each, as well as bailiffs to secure entry — placing the process beyond practical reach. The matter went nowhere.

More recently, the CSC indicated possible court action — not to assist with enforcement of maintenance fees, but to recover our arrears to the Commission. We understand that fewer than half of strata complexes pay these fees at all, yet our consistent payments have yielded no tangible benefit.

The CSC’s priorities appear clear: to use the courts to secure its own revenue while offering little support to improve strata operations. Even basic record-keeping remains inadequate, despite complexes also being charged for filing mandatory annual returns.

Apart from the typical tendency of regulatory bodies to interfere rather than facilitate, and to generate revenue under another name, there is little justification for mandatory registration. In our case, over half a million dollars has delivered no value.

It may be better for complexes like ours to address their challenges independently.

Paul Ward