Book review - Condo Questions and Answers

Article from Volume 11, Issue Number 4, 2024

Book review - Condo Questions and Answers

By Alan Forbes | Other articles by Alan Forbes | Feature

Here’s an easy-to-read guide to condo ownership

Condo Questions and Answers, Ontario edition: What you can do about the 40+ most common — and unexpected — condo problems, by Sally Thompson

This book is well written, informative and is an easy read. Each chapter covers one topic in about five pages, with chapters organized into four sections:

Condos for beginners
Solving your condo living problems
How your condo is run
Tips for owners

Before reading this book, I thought I knew a lot about condo corporation governance, management and operations. Now I realize that while I know a lot about my own townhouse condo, I know less about low-rise and high-rise condos. As I read and thought about the content, I recalled that when former U.S. secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld was questioned about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he talked about “known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.” The concept can be summarized in a matrix (see inset, source: Wikipedia).

	Aware	Not aware
Understand	Known knowns: Things we are aware of and understand	Unknown knowns: Things we understand but are not aware of
Don't understand	Known unknowns: Things we are aware of but don't understand	Unknown unknowns: Things we are neither aware of nor understand

For a few examples, a chapter in the first section, Why do maintenance fees rise faster than salaries?, discusses the following points:

Known known — the corporation’s insurance premium has risen much faster that the inflation rate because of all of the floods, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, etc., wreaking havoc across North America, resulting in more and higher claims against all insurance companies;

Unknown known — increased slip/fall injury claims due to icy conditions increases the insurance premiums for snow removal companies, and those costs flow on to the condo corporations;

For a few more examples, a chapter in the second section, I live in a very tall building. Does this create additional risks?, discusses the following points in relation to supertall buildings (65 or more storeys) :

Unknown known — What happens if you live in the penthouse of a supertall building and you have a heart attack? You call 911 but not only do the paramedics have to drive to your building, they then have to wait for an elevator and a potentially long ride up. Perhaps there is an AED in the lobby that your spouse can get. How long does it take to go all the way down in the elevator, grab the AED, then go back up in the elevator? It might be a good idea to have your own AED (if you live in the penthouse you can probably afford it) or have AEDs on each floor or in each elevator.

Unknown unknown — The high winds on the upper most storeys can result in air and/or moisture ingress into units. Diagnosing the problem is usually very difficult and expensive because the ingress depends on when and how hard the wind blows, and the ingress path may start at a storeys above or below the unit in question.

One chapter in the second section, Is my building safe?, was especially interesting to me because it discussed the 2021 Surfside condominium (aka Champlain Towers) disaster, which we have covered a few times, most recently in an article in our winter 2022 newsletter. Many contributing factors are discussed, including exposure to salt spray, inadequate reserve fund, a deficient building code at the time of construction, questionable initial design and construction quality, trying quick fixes or cosmetic changes over the years rather than thorough causal analysis and the proper fix. This chapter is a must read for highrise condo boards and owners.

All in all, this book is an excellent read and a recommendation for all condo owners, investors, residents, managers and especially for all condo directors. If you wish to purchase a copy of Sally Thompson’s book, here is a link to get yourself a copy. https://formaclorimerbooks.ca/product/condo-questions-and-answers-ontario-edition/.

Alan Forbes owns and lives in a condo and is a director of his condo corporation. He also is a director of CCI Manitoba and is its vice-president.