Jan 22, 2012

Quote: "There's no justification for being made to pay for documentation that you already own.  It's your building and your corporation, so they're your documents."

The current situation comes about because most condo Boards don't want to deal with the issue. They leave it to their management companies to provide documents to owners who are selling, and the Condo Property Act of Alberta allows Boards and management companies to charge a "reasonable fee" for the paper.  But just because a fee is permitted doesn't mean it should be charged, and with web-site posting so easy today that your high-school-age son or daughter can do it, why are most documents not available for downloading at no cost?

I've had privacy concerns raised by some who would keep condo documents private or restrict them to viewing by owners within a condo property.  But these documents are already in the public domain for anyone willing to pay the ridiculous fees to download them from fee-for-service sites.  Heck, even your property's assessed value is on line with the City of Calgary, and via Land Titles I can look up who owns your home and even how much you paid for it.  As well, disclosure of all documents to prospective buyers is required by the Act, so put aside any concern for privacy.

Another false issue is that management companies need the revenue from document sales.  Well, I could say that I need revenue, too, and so does every person and every company.  If management firms need more money they should talk to the condo corporations that hire them and then charge enough up-front to provide the services they promise.  They could also charge for a package of management service that includes on-line access to all condo documents.  Hey, I'll do host them for free (it's that easy), but if someone wants to pay a little for in-house service, that's okay, too.  Anyway, there are still documents that need to be prepared for individual condo sales, such as estoppel certificates, from which management firms will still make some money.

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Conversion (law) From Wikipedia

The free encyclopedia Conversion is a common law tort. A conversion is a voluntary act by one person inconsistent with the ownership rights of another.[1] It is a tort of strict liability.[2] Its criminal counterpart is theft.