A complete guide to the resale condo purchase process, from pre-approval through closing day. What's different about condos, and where the real risks are.
Buying a resale condo in Ontario follows the same general process as buying any other property, with one significant addition: the status certificate condition. That document is the primary tool you have to assess the financial and legal health of the building you're buying into. Getting it right matters more than most buyers realize.
This guide covers the full process from pre-approval to closing. If you're buying pre-construction rather than resale, see the pre-construction guide instead, as the process and risks are quite different.
A mortgage pre-approval before you start viewing units does two things. It tells you your actual price ceiling based on current rates and your financial profile, and it gives you credibility with sellers when you're ready to make an offer. In a competitive market, an offer from a buyer who hasn't been pre-approved is weaker than one from a buyer who has.
For condos specifically, lenders will also want to know the monthly maintenance fee because it affects your total monthly carrying cost and your debt service ratios. A unit with a low price but a high maintenance fee may qualify for less financing than a comparably priced freehold.
Lenders typically add 50% of the monthly maintenance fee to your carrying costs when calculating whether you qualify. On a $900/month fee, that's $450 added to the calculation. Make sure your pre-approval was done with a realistic fee estimate for the type of building you're targeting, not a generic number.
A condo-specialist agent knows things a generalist won't: which buildings have management issues, which ones have healthy reserve funds, where fees have been increasing above inflation, and how to structure a status certificate condition that actually protects you. If you're looking in Toronto, CondosAgent.com lists agents who work primarily with condo buyers and sellers.
When you're researching buildings during your search, CondosReview.com rates Toronto buildings on reserve fund health, management quality, and fee history, which helps you filter before you even go to see a unit. You can also browse current Toronto condo listings on TorontoProperty.ca to see what's available across buildings and price ranges.
Your offer on a resale condo should almost always include a condition on satisfactory review of the status certificate. This gives you the right to have a lawyer review the building's financials and legal documents and to walk away without penalty if something is seriously wrong.
The standard condition gives you 10 business days from receipt of the certificate. The corporation has up to 10 calendar days to deliver it after a request under section 76 of the Condominium Act. In practice, some buildings deliver within 24-48 hours, others take the full 10 days. If you're in a fast-moving market, you may want to order the status certificate before making an offer so the timeline is under your control.
In competitive multiple-offer situations, some buyers waive the status certificate condition to make their offer more attractive. This is a significant risk. You won't know about underfunded reserves, pending special assessments, or serious litigation until after you're legally committed to the purchase. A lawyer who specializes in condo transactions will advise you on how to weigh that risk in a specific situation.
Once you have the certificate, send the full package to your real estate lawyer as quickly as possible. The package includes the main certificate plus all attachments: the declaration, bylaws, rules, most recent reserve fund study, insurance certificate, and often meeting minutes. Your lawyer reads all of this.
What they're looking for: reserve fund funding level relative to the study, any pending or contemplated special assessments, arrears attached to the unit, any litigation that could result in costs to the corporation, and any rules in the declaration or bylaws that conflict with how you intend to use the unit. Read the full breakdown in our status certificate guide.
Condo buyers in Ontario need to budget for costs beyond the purchase price. The main ones are:
On the day you close, your lawyer receives the mortgage funds, pays out the seller's mortgage and any liens, and transfers the remaining funds to the seller's lawyer. You receive the keys to the unit. The title is registered in your name through Ontario's electronic land registry system. Your maintenance fees begin the day you take ownership.
One thing some first-time condo buyers miss: in older buildings, the unit may not have individual hydro or water metering and those utilities are included in the maintenance fee. In newer buildings, especially those built after 2010, hydro is almost always individually metered. Confirm how utilities are billed before closing so your monthly budget is accurate from day one.
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