Have you been part of an owners’ meeting around reserve funds or special assessments that got heated?
We’ve heard from many of you that decisions around necessary repairs can be challenging and sometimes lead to disagreements. Many condo community members don’t fully understand the process, the legal obligations or the fact that condo owners are ultimately responsible for filling any reserve fund gaps.
That’s why CAO is inviting all Ontario condo corporations to share key data around their reserve funds.
This data will help us continue to educate condo owners and the public about reserve funds and support more informed reserve funding discussions for all condo corporations in years to come.
The CAO would like to thank everyone who has already participated! If that’s the case for your condo corporation, please feel free to disregard this email.
Our research initiative
The CAO has partnered with the Toronto Metropolitan University’s Urban Analytics Institute to design our survey and analyze the results. We’ve also created a secure system that allows each corporation in Ontario to seamlessly share certain financial documents and information with us, if they choose.
The information we collect will be kept secure and combined with other responses. It will be presented in aggregate form in a future provincewide report on reserve funds.
Why this research matters
In 2023, CAO collected initial reserve fund information from condo corporations for the first time and released our findings in a report. Since then, economic conditions have continued to change, and CAO wants to better understand how these shifts are affecting reserve fund planning and financial pressures across the sector.
How you can help
- Talk to your board about participating in our reserve fund research, including:
- Completing our new Survey on Reserve Funds in Ontario
- Uploading certain financial documents to our secure portal
Participation is voluntary. Your corporation can choose to complete the survey, upload documents, or both.
Survey details
- Completion time: 45 to 60 minutes (or upload documents if time is limited)
- One survey response per condo corporation
Your condo corporation needs to designate one representative with Full Access permissions to your corporation’s CAO profile to participate in the survey – usually the board president, secretary or condo manager.
Document sharing
You may also choose to upload financial documents to support the research. This is optional and you can share as much or as little as your corporation is comfortable with.
Documents may include:
- Notices of Future Funding from your two most recent reserve fund studies for every reserve fund, including for any shared facilities
- Audited financial statements from the past five years, including shared facilities that have separate financial statements
- Shared facilities agreements
These documents were identified in our consultations with reserve fund experts as the most helpful for understanding reserve fund planning across the sector.
Data privacy and protection
All data will be saved in CAO’s secure portal. Condo corporations that participate will be asked to provide consent to CAO to share their information with our research partner TMU. If consent is not given, your data will only be analyzed by CAO.
Specific information attributed to individual condo corporations will not be published and will not be used for any other purpose such as compliance.
How to get started:
- Talk to your board and decide if your corporation wants to take part in the survey, upload documents or both.
- Choose one person to participate on behalf of your condo corporation.
- Make sure they have Full Access permissions to your corporation’s CAO profile.
- If you are participating on behalf of your condo corporation, log into your account on CAO’s website and navigate to Corporation Surveys.
- Select your condo corporation.
- Access your corporation’s unique survey link, secure document upload and instructions.
Please ensure only your chosen representative completes the survey and/or document upload by August 14.
Our Reserve Fund Research Guide has more information to help you get started.
