A Status Certificate is ordered on the resale of each condominium unit that is resold in the Toronto Real estate market. The Status Certificate costs $100.00 in Ontario, a cost borne by the seller in a normal transaction. The condominium corporation is bound to comply within 10 days. Usually there is an additional period of 3 days for you to examine the documents.
The Actual Status Certificate contains the current operating budget with existing and future proposed expeditures (spending); Notes about any proposed special assessments and changes in financial status.
Condominium Documents are a standard package that include the Rules and Regulations of the Condominium COrporation; 5- 10 pages. The Condominium ByLaws and the Status Certificate. 20-30 pages. These document could easily be PDF'd or saved to a computer disk CD-Rom for storage and access.
Having the documents on a computer disk would save thousands of dollars in photocopy expenses and fees to reproduce the same material time and time again.
Management companies would save by speeding the process and response time for the delivery of Document bundles to prospective purchasers on behalf of the (shareholders) unit owners. Not to mention the cost of photocopies and processing.
The Builders at the time of marketing the condominium could include the renderings and exteriors, include floorplans as part of their marketing programs. By starting a new trend to save paper time and money, the builder would also set themselves out as eco friendly, something that is timely in Toronto.
Would you as a potential Purchaser take the CD ROM home in addition to your printed material and view it on your home computer? When you have signed the Offer to Purchase there is a standard Offer document that the Builder uses, now inserted with your name and offer details. This is added to the bound copies ofthe Rules and Regs, plus the proposed documentation of the as yet unbuilt condo corporation. You are leaving the sales office with the same material but in a more convenient fashion.
You now have 10 days (the cooling off period) referred to as Rescission to decide before making your commitment firm.
You, in conjunction with your lawyer, should review these prior to your initial consultation about what is contained in these documents, and you would both be better served. Examine the closing cost proposals, become informed about Phantom Mortgage charges, meter activation charges and green fees.
Electronic document transfers are becoming commonplace, we are actually replacing the fax with emailed documents and their attachments that are forwarded back and forth.
These changes would need to be implimented from the time of marketing to trickle down to the end user effectively but with the number of large condominium corporations operating in Toronto, participation by Tridel, Menkes, Monarch and Pemberton could surely lead the way.
In this day and age, I am confidant to say that many would pay an additional $5 or $10 per transaction for digitized documents, not to mention the time and mileage spend to ferry documents either by courier or agent for convenience and time constraints.
Your comments and opinions are invited.
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