Most passive owners only notice problems after fees have risen, repairs have become unclear, or communication inside the building has already broken down.
You bought a condo. You paid a significant amount of money, signed a stack of paperwork, and moved in. The reasonable assumption at that point is that the hard part is over.
That assumption is what makes passivity so expensive.
A condominium in Ontario is a corporation. Every unit owner is automatically a member of that corporation, and its governance, meaning the quality of decisions made about the building’s budget, maintenance, contractors, and long-term direction, directly affects the value of what you own and the quality of how you live. Staying uninvolved does not exempt you from the outcomes. It simply means you are not present when the decisions that produce those outcomes are being made.
The structural problem most owners do not see
The Ontario Condominium Act creates a formal accountability structure: owners elect a board, the board hires management, and regulatory bodies including the Condominium Authority Tribunal and the Condominium Management Regulatory Authority of Ontario provide guidance and dispute resolution mechanisms.
What the Act does not resolve is a fundamental asymmetry between the corporation and the individual owner.
The condominium corporation is insured. It is funded continuously through all owners’ maintenance fees. It retains legal counsel when needed and can sustain formal proceedings for as long as those proceedings take. The individual owner, by contrast, bears personal legal costs, operates without institutional backing, and faces the same proceedings at personal expense.
This is not a flaw in anyone’s intentions. It is the structural reality of how the system is set up. The practical consequence is that when an individual owner and the corporation are on opposite sides of a dispute, the cost asymmetry favours the corporation regardless of the merits of the underlying issue. Many owners who have legitimate concerns quietly absorb the cost rather than pursue them formally, not because they are wrong, but because the process is expensive and the outcome uncertain.
Understanding this asymmetry is not a reason for cynicism. It is a reason for collective action. Because the dynamic changes entirely when owners are organized and acting together rather than individually.
What passive ownership actually costs
The financial consequences of disengagement are real and consistent across buildings.
When a building is well managed, the effects are visible: unit values hold or appreciate, fees increase predictably and in line with real cost growth, common areas stay in good condition, and major repairs are planned and funded without crisis. Owners rarely notice good management because it does not generate events that demand attention.
When a building is poorly managed, the effects accumulate gradually and then arrive suddenly: a fee increase with a vague explanation, a special assessment that was never anticipated, a maintenance failure that turns out to have been visible in engineering reports for years, a governance conflict that has been running in the background while most owners were unaware. By the time these events arrive, the decisions that caused them are already made and largely irreversible.
Passive ownership does not create these outcomes directly. What it does is remove the check on the governance that produces them. A board that operates without meaningful owner oversight makes different decisions than one that knows its choices will be scrutinized, questioned, and voted on by an engaged and informed owner base.
Why individual engagement has limits
One owner reading the budget, asking questions at the AGM, and submitting written requests to management is doing the right things. It is also, in most cases, not enough to change the direction of a building on its own.
Individual engagement matters, and it is always better than no engagement. But the leverage available to a single owner operating independently is limited. A concern raised by one person can be dismissed or deflected. The same concern raised by fifteen organized owners, documented in writing and formally submitted, is a different kind of event. It requires a response. It creates a record. It signals to the board and management that the issue will not simply disappear.
The difference between individual and collective engagement is not just scale. It is structural. Organized owners can request formal meetings, call a requisition meeting to replace directors, formally demand records, and escalate through proper channels with the credibility and documentation that comes from a coordinated group. Individual owners have the same rights in theory. In practice, the exercising of those rights is far more effective when it is not happening in isolation.
The most practical tool: an independent residents’ group
The most accessible and consistently effective form of collective owner organization is an independent residents’ communication group, one that is set up and controlled by owners rather than by management or the board.
The platform is secondary. WhatsApp, Telegram, a private Facebook group, or any other tool that allows reliable group communication works. What determines whether the group is useful or not is how it is run.
A residents’ group that functions as a general community chat produces noise: news, gossip, arguments, announcements about lost cats. Perhaps five to ten percent of members are actively engaged with building issues. The rest are passive participants who mute the group or tune it out. This is not a coordination tool. It is a community feature with limited governance value.
A residents’ group that functions as a working coordination tool operates differently. Its rules are simple and consistently enforced:
- only building-related topics: issues, questions, proposed actions, meeting notices, and relevant documents
- no personal arguments, no off-topic conversation, no drama
- rules are visible and re-posted regularly, at minimum once a week
- moderators are identified and active, not nominal
A group run this way becomes something different. It is the place where an owner posts a concern and finds out whether others share it. It is where the AGM agenda gets read and discussed before the meeting, so that questions are coordinated rather than scattered. It is where the reserve fund study gets circulated and someone asks the question that everyone was wondering but no one raised formally. It is where a pattern of governance issues becomes visible to enough people simultaneously that a collective response becomes possible.
People who rarely attend AGMs will participate in a well-run group chat. The accessibility is different, the barrier to entry is lower, and the ongoing connection to building issues is easier to maintain. This is not a replacement for formal participation, attending meetings, voting, submitting written requests. It is the infrastructure that makes that participation more likely to happen and more effective when it does.
What organized owners can actually do
When a sufficient number of owners in a building are informed and coordinated, several formal mechanisms become practical that are difficult to exercise individually.
Owners can formally requisition a meeting of owners if they believe the board is not acting in the corporation’s interests. They can coordinate a vote to remove and replace directors at the AGM. They can submit joint written requests for records or information that the corporation is obligated to provide. They can collectively engage legal or advisory resources that no individual owner could justify alone. And they can create the kind of visible, documented owner scrutiny that changes how boards and management companies behave, often before any formal action is required.
None of these mechanisms is complicated. All of them require a minimum threshold of organized, informed owners to be effective. That threshold is lower than most people assume. In a building of one hundred units, twenty to thirty engaged and coordinated owners is enough to change the governance dynamic. In smaller buildings, fewer.
Where to start
If your building does not have an independent residents’ group, start one. The logistics are straightforward: choose a platform, invite a core group of engaged owners, establish the rules from the beginning, and enforce them consistently. The first few weeks determine whether the group becomes a working tool or drifts into noise.
If your building has a management-run communication channel but no independent owner group, the distinction matters. A channel controlled by management serves the management’s communication needs. An independent owner group serves the owners’.
If your building already has an active independent group, the question is whether it is functioning as a coordination tool or as a community chat. The difference is in the rules and the moderation, and both can be improved without starting over.
Staying passive is expensive. Getting organized is free. The governance of your building, and with it the value of your investment, is determined by who shows up and what they do with their presence.
Alexander Baraz
Consultant for Condominium Owners
condoowneradvisor.ca
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Educational guidance only. Not legal advice.