Traditionally, a condominium apartment purchase posed an attraction for people because they did not have to directly bother about the maintenance of the exterior of the whole condominium building. However, any condominium apartment owner cannot afford not to be aware of certain relevant aspects of the maintenance of condominiums and the extent of related regular expenditures he/she may have to shell out.
What most people (who plan to buy or have already bought a condo apartment in a condominium building or tower) are aware of is that they are themselves responsible for the internal maintenance, upkeep, and repair of their own condo apartment. What they are also aware of is that the external maintenance and upkeep of the whole condominium building including common areas and utilitarian services is something they do not have to bother about directly.
They are also aware of the fact that they have to pay a monthly charge to the condominium association or board vested with the responsibility of the regular external maintenance of the whole condominium building in which their condo apartment is located. Now the condominium association is a body that is formed by condo owners themselves.
Usually what happens is that most condo owners are too busy to keep an eye on the accounting aspects of the monthly maintenance charges levied on them by the association. What the association does is to pay a salary to one of the condo apartment owners, who assumes the responsibility of the external maintenance of the condominium building on his own shoulders. Alternatively, the association appoints a professional and pays him a salary for the purpose. This also serves to inflate the total maintenance bill.
Now an issue with the extent of monthly maintenance charges that a condominium apartment owner has to pay to the association can arise if the charges levied are too high.
Sometimes, an owner may feel why he should pay at all for a new skylight if it was broken by a neighboring condo owner. Another reason why the monthly charges can become too high is because some of the condominium owners who have taken a mortgage to purchase their condo apartments have defaulted on their condo loan repayments and therefore have no money to pay for the maintenance charges even.
Now the total monthly condominium building external maintenance bill has to be anyhow footed. Therefore what the association does is to apportion the portion of maintenance payments in respect of defaulting condo owners on those who have already paid their equitable monthly maintenance charges to the association. This can cause animosity because definitely the extra burden on the already paying condo owners from their viewpoint is entirely unjustified.
Therefore, especially during bad economic times, keeping up with monthly maintenance payments may become unwieldy for most condo apartment owners. What had seemed a clear advantage to condo buyers at first sight can quickly turn into a nightmare and with no clear solution in sight to the issues that then later occur.