Condo Special Assessment Voted Between Acceptance and Closing in Quebec: Who Pays?

A condo buyer checked everything before making an offer. The promise is accepted, the notary date is set. Then, a few weeks before the deed, the syndicate calls a meeting and votes a special assessment. Who pays? This article covers only that case: an assessment voted during the transaction. What a special assessment is and how to spot one before making an offer are covered in our article on condo special assessments.

A vote that lands at the wrong moment

Between acceptance of the promise and signing of the deed, the condominium keeps operating. The syndicate manages the building, receives quotes for work, calls meetings. Nothing puts the building's life on hold because one unit is being sold.

An assessment voted during that interval puts both parties in a situation neither expected. The seller thought they were selling a unit with known charges. The buyer thought they were buying a unit with known charges. Neither reading was wrong at acceptance, and that is what makes the question delicate.

Voted, due, paid: three dates that don't line up

The first difficulty is that a special assessment doesn't have one date but several. It is voted at a meeting on a given date. It becomes due on one or more dates set by the decision. It is sometimes paid in one instalment, sometimes in several spread over months.

An assessment voted two weeks before the deed can therefore have a first instalment due before signing and others after. Saying "it was voted before the sale" settles nothing until it is clear which of these dates counts for splitting the charge between seller and buyer. The whole question turns on that.

The promise answers first

The parties are free to agree, in the promise to purchase, on how charges and assessments voted or due before and after a given date are split. When the promise sets this out clearly, that is the split the notary applies at the deed, in the adjustments between seller and buyer.

The first step when an assessment lands during the transaction is therefore to reread the promise and its annexes with your broker, to see whether the question is settled there and by which date. In many cases the answer is written down; it was simply read too quickly at signing.

Without a clear clause, it becomes a negotiation

If the promise says nothing, or says something ambiguous, the split is no longer obvious. The seller will argue that an expense due after the sale benefits the building the buyer will own. The buyer will argue that a decision taken before the sale belongs to the owner at the time. Both arguments have their logic.

In that situation, the question is settled between the parties, with the help of the brokers and the notary, who will obtain from the syndicate a statement of amounts owed and due dates. There is no automatic answer a buyer could invoke without discussion. It is precisely to avoid that last-minute negotiation that a clause written in advance beats every interpretation.

The seller still votes; the buyer may pay

One aspect of the problem is rarely said out loud. Until the deed is signed, the seller is the co-owner. They are the one who receives the notice, attends the meeting and votes, including on an expense the buyer will bear in whole or in part.

The seller doesn't necessarily share the buyer's interests on that vote. They may consider urgent an expense they won't pay, or not oppose it because nothing is at stake for them personally. Hence the value, for the buyer, of knowing that a meeting has been called before the deed, so they can at least make their position known to the seller before the vote.

What the buyer can plan for

Everything is prepared when the promise is drafted. Three elements can go into it: a clear split of assessments voted or due before and after a set date, an obligation for the seller to inform the buyer of any meeting called before the deed, and, if the buyer wishes, a condition letting them respond to an assessment voted during the transaction.

Without that last one, an assessment voted after acceptance does not, on its own, allow the buyer to withdraw from an unconditional promise. Your broker can help word these clauses. They take a few lines, and they turn a last-minute surprise into a question already settled.