Thousands of times this year the following scene will be replayed. An owner of a condo in Edmonton will decide to sell and list their property on MLS. Once they get the buyer they pretty much have it made right? Wrong. Usually the buyer will have conditions in their offer and one of those conditions is commonly subject to obtaining, reviewing and approving of condominium documents.
This is where things get dicey. Many sellers and seller agents chose for whatever reason to wait until they have an offer to order the condo documents from the condo association. Now comes the problem. The buyers want to have a decent amount of time to review the condo documents but it frequently takes the management company several business days to provide the necessary documents.
Why is that? The documents REALTORS ask for are pretty standard ( I have no idea what private buyers will ask for), so it should be no surprise to the management to prepare a set of documents shortly after a "for sale" sign goes up in front of their building.
So, condo managers and board members listen up, I have a recommendation for you:
Store condo documents electronically and when the documents are requested email them that day.
I know some management companies are already going cold with the thought of doing that: “how will we make money if we don't get to charge $300.00 for photocopying these documents?"
Answer: charge a convenience fee and save on paper costs. I would gladly pay extra to receive the files electronically instead of having to drive to wherever your office is located, and then courier it to wherever my clients are located. Paper savings, time savings – it would be a win win for the sellers, the buyers, the agents and the condo association.
For my perspective submitting the documents needed to a management company and getting an email with those documents on the same day seems like a pipe dream, but a boy can dream can’t he?
