Risk associated with the purchase of Multi-Family-Dwellings in Greater Vancouver

I recently came across these Vancouver Courier articles (Condo Pitfalls & Condo Nightmares). They do a fairly accurate and thorough job of discussing the pitfalls that buyers face when buying condo style apartments and townhouses in the Vancouver region.


We have found that too many buyers in the market today do not truly understand the liability they face when buying into multi-family. We often get comments like “That is the Strata’s responsibility; we do not have to worry about that”. We have heard of many people that have gone bankrupt or lost their Condo because of special assessments for unexpected repairs that they could not afford. I have never heard of this happening to buyers of single-family-dwellings.

The facts are that the purchase of any multi-family-dwelling typically represents a significantly higher level of possible liability over the purchase of an average single family home. One of the key reasons for this is the fact that most multi-family-buildings are quite a bit taller and larger than a typical single family house and as such have a much greater exposure to wind driven rain. This higher exposure will then accentuate problems with a water shedding surface with poor design and maintenance.

These articles somewhat suggest that the problem may be behind us or is confined to buildings of the 80’s and 90’s. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many studies, including those by CMHC, state that there has only been an approximate 50% of the buildings that have or will have problems fixed to date. This leaves tens of thousands of units that are still out their in need of remediation.

As the articles discuss, even a fully or partially remediated building does not always significantly lower your liability. Many early attempts at remediation did nothing to change the actual design of the water shedding surfaces and are as such destined to repeat the cycle of repair and the extreme costs to the owners that result from those repairs.

Brand new buildings are also not a guarantee of quality or lower liability. Our inspections have uncovered many buildings 1-5 year old and still under warranty that have water ingress into parkades, roof top decks, poorly detailed and back slopping flashings, etc, the list goes on. Just because a building is constructed post 2000 does not mean you do not have to still be careful in your selection and diligence.

You often can also not rely on the fact that there is a warranty in place. We have come across an alarming number of Strata’s that have not commissioned a full building envelope assessment prior to the 5yr Water Ingress Warranty expiry and as such lost out on the opportunity to claim problems that were present. And those that do file a warranty claim, and are successful in their claim, can often be met with short term repairs done by the developer in order to get past the warranty period. Often these short term repairs saddle the owners with a lifetime of accelerated maintenance and increased cost of ownership going forward.

So it is very important to perform due diligence when purchasing a multi-family-dwellings and I will discuss ways to do so in upcoming blog posts.