Strawberry Park Towns | U/C

[ijmorlan]

No, a condominium corp is governed by specific Provincial legislation.  An HOA is governed only by the reciprocal agreement that created it.

But by what legislated power?  An HOA which is not enforced under legislation couldn't be mandated that the residents become members and pay dues or fees.

I believe the HOA would be registered on title of the affected properties. Effectively it would be an encumbrance on the title. So instead of owning the property subject only to the usual payment of property taxes, ownership is also subject to participating in the HOA. Conceptually related to an easement, where maybe ownership is additionally subject to letting Waterloo North Hydro access their wires or whatever.

It’s a subtle distinction from a condominium. I think the basic idea of condominium legislation is to standardize HOAs. This is not unlike a lot of legislation. For example, a lot of consumer protection legislation basically says that instead of being able to make whatever contract you want, certain provisions are a certain way regardless of what the parties agree. We give up the right to make arbitrary contracts in return for the ability to be able to buy stuff without reading all the fine print. It’s often a good trade-off, although too few people understand it as such.

It describes different legal situations which arrive at the same implications on your lets call them "freedoms and responsibilities", although the common elements corporation sounds more..limited...in that common elements cannot exist within the physical parcels of land that the townhomes  sit on (i.e., the roofs cannot be common elements as they are in some condos), but I don't understand how that would be different than defining the units of a standard condominium as literally the property parcel boundaries.

In a standard condo, the pieces of property which participate in the condo are fundamentally part of the condo. The condo has significant jurisdiction over how those properties can be used, and is typically responsible for maintenance of many aspects of the buildings. Additionally, even if it is something like a townhouse complex where the units aren’t stacked on top of each other, the boundaries of the units aren’t real property boundaries; they are defined in the declaration. If you look on a map that shows property boundaries, the whole condo will just be one big parcel with multiple ownership records (one for each unit).

By contrast, if I understand correctly, in a common elements corporation it has jurisdiction only over the common elements. The individual properties are actual parcels and can be seen separately on a map.

I apologize in advance if I’ve made any legal mistakes. But nobody is relying on this, right? Talk to a lawyer if it actually matters. I’m reasonably confident that I’m accurate up to the level of detail discussed.