You have the option to buy Tenants/renters/Content insurance from who ever you want. Those coverages that are required by a strata are probably to cover the damage deductible caused by accidental flooding or fire from your building.

+Also living expenses if you need to move somewhere temporarily while the place is being fixed up to code.

As posted above, the insurance can be used to cover the strata insurance deductible. Quite often the 'cheap' tenants insurance wont come close to the deductible tho. It is not uncommon to see a 50k deductible and many tenant policies are good only up to 10k of it

Tenant's/renter's insurance is not the same as homeowner's insurance....

I might be out of my league here, but are you guys forgetting that if strata bylaws change like that, you're grandfathered in if you're an original owner and they only apply to residents/owners after the bylaw was put in place?

I know it works like that for pet restrictions and other such rules.

ment condo owners insurance not tenant.

You're going to call a lawyer over something that costs $100-$200 a year?

This.

I was going to post the exact same thing.

That only applies in particular circumstances, and it doesn't mean the grandfathered rules apply forever. In the pet example, if you have a pet and the strata then votes in a no-pet bylaw, you don't have to get rid of your current pet, but adding any more WOULD contravene the bylaw, and once the one you have dies, you're no longer grandfathered.

In the case of requiring insurance, I'd think the only way it would apply is if you had "X" type of insurance and the council voted to require "Y" kind of insurance - your "X" insurance would still be fine until the policy lapsed... then you'd have to renew with "Y" insurance; "X" would no longer be accepted.

What Soundy said appears to the generally accepted conditions of grandfathering.

So in this case, it seems like Mr. C does need to purchase some form of insurance.

If he bothered to ask his insurance broker, instead of RS, he might also find out that there's a lower-cost, less-inclusive insurance package that would be appropriate for his case, since coverages like vehicles and contents don't apply.

shutting the water off doesnt mean those lines are emty. If temperatures reach freezing in your unit (since you have no heat) you could burst your piping , and when you do decide to turn the water back on, you will have a leak.

In this case, buy the insurance.

I believe there is no law in the strata act that requires an owner to buy insurance.

However if your building (strata corporation) has a bylaw that requires y you to buy insurance, you are suppose to follow it.

Overall if or if not there is a law - why wouldn't you buy insurance?

A water leak or a fire and you are out whatever damages there are.

He's mentioned that the strata by-law does have a clause for it, BUT that clause was only added in 6 months ago. So he should technically be grandfathered into the previous plan.

The correct description of grandfathering as it applies to strata laws:

An incorrect description:

/thread

Insurance isn't that expensive. Pipes burst all of the time in condos, particularly in newer buildings which are much lower in quality - better safe than sorry.
Posted via RS Mobile

It's the principle though, dammit! OP doesn't want to let the strata FORCE him to do anything... even if it is the *intelligent* thing to do.

Um...no. Newer building use PEX tubing with brass fittings for domestic water. The only chance for leaks is from the fittings.

Older building use copper piping that have far more pinhole and joint leaks. The acidic nature of the water locally slowly corrodes the copper internally over time. That is why you see a lot of older highrises repiping hot water after 15 years.

That's the trade-off for living in a strata. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't have bought a strata property, but I digress...

Sometimes that's a trade-off you have to make for a lower price and lower property taxes - owning your own home and property strata-free is great, but you pay more for that privilege.... and with a strata, you have everyone's strata fees going toward things like building maintenance, landscaping, snow removal, and all those things that you'd have to pay for all by yourself otherwise.

Keep in mind that it's not just the few people on the council that implemented this rule - bylaws like that have to be voted on and approved by a quorum of the owners. In other words, a lot of the other owners also think it's a good idea to require "absentee owners" to carry insurance on their empty properties.

You hear a lot of strata horror stories, only because they're horror stories - really they're not ALL that bad. Ours is pretty laid-back and generally good to deal with.

I deal with property claims and believe it or not, although the chances of leak from the PEX piping is lower, there are still tons of leaks from all over the place. Be it from the fittings/facuet/mechanical room/sewer etc etc.. Some of the workmanship of the newer building are just out right horrendous!

Same goes with newer houses.

Trust me when I say this, it's not worth it to cheap out on condo insurance.

I've replaced three original shutoff spigots already in our 14-year-old townhouse, after they started leaking around the shaft. Burst pipes are just one place leaks can happen.

for a condo I used to own, strata fee included insurance.
if your strata fee doesn't include insurance... GET ONE!
Just because no one lives there doens't mean it's immune to damage.
what if some renter next to your unit, burns the building?
I dont know where you get the balls to not insure hundreds of thousands dollars in properties.

That would be insurance for the property itself, common areas, building replacement costs, things like that that affect everyone. It doesn't cover your personal property or liability from damages caused by things within your condo.

This is standard for most types of strata properties.

Side note, I'm curious how that strata is enforcing that insurance rule. Are they making every unit fax in their insurance documents or what?

That's how it would generally be done, yes. Or scan and email.

Our townhouse complex has an extra little bit of land on one end that's designated the "RV lot", but it's really just used for general overflow/guest/storage parking. Any vehicles stored there are required to be insured, even if it's just storage insurance, and must actually BELONG TO one of the owners (so you don't get someone telling his buddy, "Yeah, for $100, you can park your boat here!"). Proof of ownership and insurance can be faxed, emailed, or copies mailed to the property management.