[saillias]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

As a former long time condo board member, I'm always a little miffed when I see posts like this.
First of all, I hate it when people say things like "the condo board has been dinging the whole block with special assessments".
The people on the condo board are owners too, they don't want to pay extra fees any more than anyone else.
They are also volunteers who have to deal with people who don't understand or care about what goes into properly running/maintinaing a condo complex. If ever there was a thankless job, that certainly is it. It's generally a group of people who are trying their best to make life easier for a much larger group of people, who are usually only too happy to bitch about the job those people are doing for them, for free.

It annoys me when I see people exasperated by the condo board and asking what they can do about it.
How about joint he condo board, get involved, go to the AGM, have some say in how your biggest/most important investment is being run/administered.

The fact that it's happening every year, and isn't for things like unforseen repairs, would, to me, suggest that your condo fees are too low and you've got a condo board who is for some reason opposed to raising the condo fees, and instead is using special assessments to make up for an opperating deficit.

So you have two options:
1) get involved, educate yourself, and have some say in how you want things run
2) pay your yearly special assesments and stop complaining about things you could have control over, but for some reason have chosen not to

Fair enough but you could explain this to me: If I could afford one of the single detached 2-story homes a block away I'd be in one, with no condo board. Why does a condo board with volunteers have to exist in the first place? I am here for budgetary reasons, not because I want someone to shovel my driveway. What if there isn't a board, every unit owner shovels their own driveway, mows their own grass. Am I just woefully ignorant here? I didn't sign up for a condo board, it just kinda came with the purchase.