Quality and inspection of the immovable
According to the Association des professionnels de la construction et de l’habitation du Québec, the average age of divided co-ownerships is 29 years.
The stock is therefore aging and requires maintenance, repair and upgrading work. This situation represents a major issue for co-owners.
In order to preserve this type of housing in a sustainable manner and to protect buyers of new or existing units, the Québec government has taken measures regarding divided co-ownerships.
These measures stem from recommendations in the 2012 report of the advisory committee on co-ownership. They were developed in collaboration with the main organizations and professional orders concerned.
This being the case, a broker participating in a transaction involving a divided co-ownership property must be aware of these measures in order to provide the buyer with all the information relevant to the transaction.
► DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS OF THE BROKER
Recommend an inspection of the private portion and the common portions
When a broker represents a client for the purchase of an immovable held in divided co-ownership, he must recommend that his Promise to purchase be made conditional upon an inspection of the immovable, including the private portion and all common portions.
Provide the professional concerned or the building inspector with all the documentation
Where they exist, the buyer’s broker must provide the building inspector with the following documents:
The asset management plan, which includes;
The inspector is not always able to examine the common areas in great detail. By consulting these documents, he will be able to see if the building’s maintenance schedule has been followed, which will give him a good idea of the general condition of the property.
What to do if the cost of a pre-purchase inspection of the private portion and the common portions is prohibitively high?
The cost of inspecting the private and common portions can be very high in certain co-ownership properties.
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The buyer may limit the inspection of the common areas to a few specific ones. In this case, his broker must write a clause to this effect in the section “Other declarations and conditions” of the Promise to purchase – Divided co-ownership form.
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In all cases, the buyer and his broker must obtain information from the syndicate of co-owners on the state of the immovable as a whole. Once this information has been obtained, the broker must recommend that the buyer consult the property documentation for indicators on the quality of the common portions.
For more details: Coming into force of the bill on the regulation of building inspections and divided co-ownership
