If you own a condo, you know that you will soon have to comply with the requirements of Bill 16. But your building is brand new and you may think this law does not concern you. After all, why should you set aside money now if the building doesn’t need repair? Stay tuned as we take a closer look at the motivation behind Bill 16.

The motivation behind Bill 16 comes from the fact that many condominiums have run out of funds in their bank accounts and have not been able to do the work that their building requires. With this bill, the government aims to avoid extraordinary contribution and ensure that future owners do not end up footing the bill for the negligence of today’s owners.

We know that for many, such a measure seems unfounded. Having to pay for windows that will reach the end of their life in 40 years may seem unfair. But if we reverse the situation and say that we have to replace windows in a condominium building now. Would it be fair that you have to pay one hundred percent of the cost when you have not benefited from those windows?

An important detail that everyone should know before buying a condo is that by deciding to live in a condo is choosing to be part of a community. And as in any existing community, the common good comes before the individual good. Let’s take the example of a municipality. In the tax bill that your municipality sends you, you will find the costs of maintenance and future investments, whether it be for the roads, water supply, the water filtration system, the library, the arena or anything else.

Your municipality does not charge you just when it makes an expenditure. It plans for the long term to spread out the payments as much as possible. They make residents pay for improvements to the common property, regardless of how you use it. For example, a municipality will continue to charge you for the maintenance of the outdoor skating rink whether you use it or not. You will still have to pay for the maintenance of the road to the elementary school even if your children no longer go there. You are part of the community and must therefore contribute to the common good. In condominiums, it is pretty much the same thing: you must maintain the common property.

Here, the building constitutes the common property and takes priority over your personal property, your unit. So, the spirit of Bill 16 is to ask, as a municipality, that future generations should not pay more money than the present generation to maintain the building and to be able to enjoy it. This can be seen as a kind of intergenerational fund set up by Bill 16. A fund to ensure that we don’t end up with poorly maintained condominiums in several years due to a lack of funds.