Sure enough, amidst the bills and letters from my alma mater looking for donations from alumni recently was a letter addressed to my husband and me from the company that manages our condo complex. It said it had been brought to the attention of the board our behaviour contravened our building’s bylaws. We needed to remove the “garbage” from the common area outside our unit, it read. Within 15 days or we could face “monetary sanctions.”

Yikes. It seems in our attempts to beautify the decades-old place to increase its value in our—and hopefully future buyers’ eyes—we left some building materials on our upper walkway outside our townhome a little too long.

Of course we will remove it, and not just because we want to avoid being sanctioned, but because we want to be able to hold our heads up high when coming and going.

Still a little embarrassed, I consulted a couple of the experts I know in town to see if we were the lepers I felt like my husband and I had become around my complex. Turns out, the letter we got is a fairly common tactic with boards to prompt compliance of condo owners and keep things around the property up to snuff along with property values.

Lauretta Kaechelle, president of the South Alberta chapter of the Canadian Condominium Insitute and vice-president of Emerald Management and Realty, says letters like ours are not out of the ordinary, and boards are generally quite reasonable when it comes to penalizing owners in a condo corporation. “Most times I have seen a board levy a fine it’s been justified, such as a really serious noise complaint where you have a couple of police officers and a police car showing up,” she notes, adding fines will likely vary and be tied to the level of offence. “Let’s say you left your Christmas lights up an extra week, you’re not going to be fined $10,000.”

While fines may be laid out in bylaws, they don’t have to be, and could be left up to the discretion of the board, says Kaechelle, who adds that often the rules surrounding keeping common property clear are not just for appearance, but also stem from safety issues. “The most common thing I see is people who have mats outside their units. I know I personally would feel just terrible if the lights were out and someone tripped over mine trying to get out in a fire,” she says.

So just what would happen if we were to ignore the letter and not remove the offending items (which, for the record, is some shelving we extracted, not a toilet or a bathtub)?
Well, they could take us to small claims court, which would mean expense and a time commitment on our part, or as Phillis Fyckes of Condo Diagnostics filled me in on, a caveat could be placed on our account. In extreme cases, our home could even go into foreclosure if we let the fees accumulate on our account.

“What that means is first the corporation would get what they are owed from the sale, then the bank, then the owners get what’s left over,” says Fyckes, adding generally owners have up until the last minute to right the wrong by just paying what’s owed. “But it’s really foolish to let an amount owing go on for a long time because the charges really can add up with caveat charges and interest and legal fees.”

In addition to complying with bylaws, Fyckes advises condo owners also consult a corporation’s condo plan to discern what’s considered common property. Generally speaking, though, common property covers any area outside a condo unit or property that’s for the enjoyment of everyone, such as pathways, stairwells and common stairs, walkways and grounds, as well as parking lots, streetlights and the outside structure of the building. But there is also exclusive-use common property, such as a parking stall or balcony off a unit, which may be used by an individual owner, but fall under the governance of the corporation. “You may have exclusive use of it, but that doesn’t mean you can put whatever you want in a parking stall,” says Fyckes. “If you allowed everyone to leave whatever they wanted on their balconies or walkways it will start to look like a slum.”

With many condo owners renovating to update their digs, interest by a board about what’s coming out of a unit may be tied to insurance and structural worries, says Fyckes. “They may be concerned you are removing a loadbearing wall and that could affect the insurance for the building,” she warns.

While our renos aren’t likely to include sledge hammering out any walls, I am certainly more mindful now of trying to stick to the rules, if for no other reason than not annoying my neighbours. Now I just have to make it up to them somehow.

So, along with mitering baseboards this weekend I figure I have about 280 muffins to bake.