Fighting Back Against Excessive Closing Costs

If your condominium corporation is less than two years old, you might wish to forward this newsletter to your unit owners and facilitate a discussion among those owners who bought directly from the builder about the costs they were charged on closing.

First purchasers of condominium units are sometimes shocked by the extra costs that are charged at closing. Agreements of purchase and sale often allow condominium developers to recover a variety of costs directly from purchasers. Often these extra costs are collected for things that one might assume were part of the purchase price. For example, developers could collect the cost of installing hydro meters, traffic lights, new sidewalks or even fencing by adding these additional construction costs to the purchase price at closing. Developers can recover construction costs and other expenses by hiding these costs in the "fine print". These extra costs are referred to in the agreements of purchase and sale as "adjustments".