Buying a condo in Iowa City – Condo Fees that affect your bottom line…
So you’ve found the condo that’s perfect for you and are all set to make an offer. You’ll write up a purchase agreement and here in the Iowa City area we have an addendum where you get 5 calender days to review the condominium home association documents to see there are no restrictions that don’t suit you. If you find something unacceptable to you, then you can walk away from the deal.
Along with the Condominium Bylaws, (that you are going to read, even if they are “put you to sleep material”), you absolutely need to see a copy of the last couple of years financial statements. You want to know that the association is solvent and can pay for lawn care and snow removal, trash removal and other regular bills. You want to know that they have sufficient funds to pay their bills and there’s not a special assessment lined up in the near future.
On the subject of special assessments, these do come up when it comes time to replace windows or a new roof. For you the condo fee is part of your monthly payment. If there’s a chance of it going up from $70 to $200 a month for six months or a year to cover a major remodel, then you want to know about it ahead of time.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to dig deep when gathering this information. Recently I spoke to a seller who felt jibbed, because he wasn’t given this info when he moved into his home. He figured he could have gotten a nicer, more expensive condo and still had the same monthly payment if he had known what lay ahead for him. These fees affect your bottom line, so the more you know the better it is for you in the long run.
One last thing. You do want to make sure the sellers are all paid up with their monthly condo fees when they move out – And that you get that confirmed in writing from the homeowners association. Sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how often this gets missed!
