The status certificate is the condo's side of the story — here's the City's

Fall is when condo buyers in Toronto have leverage they haven't had in years. The average GTA price slipped under $1 million in August, condo listings are sitting, and "conditional on a satisfactory status certificate" is a clause sellers now accept without a fight.

So you'll get the certificate. The question is what to do with it — and what it leaves out.

What a status certificate is

Under section 76 of Ontario's Condominium Act, a corporation must produce a status certificate for any unit on request, within 10 days, for a fee capped at $100 including tax. The package (often 100+ pages) covers:

• the unit's common expenses and whether the current owner is in arrears
• the budget, audited financials, and the reserve fund study
• any special assessments levied or anticipated
• insurance in place, and any lawsuits the corporation is party to
• the declaration, by-laws, and rules

We covered how to read the money side in Condo fees at $1.50 a square foot. This post is about the other half of the picture.

The catch: the status certificate is prepared by the corporation, about itself. It's legally binding — the corporation is bound by what it says — but it reports what the board knows and chooses to characterize. Nobody from the City writes any part of it.

What the City writes about the same building

Two public records, both free, are created by City of Toronto inspectors rather than the board:

• Building permits — every permitted alteration, repair, or structural job, with the City's own description of the work and whether it was closed out. A permit for "structural repairs" tells you something a reserve-fund line item labelled "capital projects" doesn't.
• Orders and violations — an Order to Comply, a work-without-permit violation, or an Unsafe Order is the City telling the owner to fix something. The status is what matters: an order still open years later means the City has never signed off.

Orders attach to the property, not the owner. In a condo, that's the corporation — and by extension, every unit owner who shares the cost of complying.

A real building, two records

8 The Esplanade, a downtown tower, carries two open Unsafe Orders, both issued July 11, 2021, the day part of a construction crane collapsed onto the building. One requires a structural engineer to attend; the other requires ongoing shoring monitoring under an engineer's report from that date. Two permits followed — one in 2022 to dismantle and relocate the collapsed counterweights, one in 2023 for structural repairs to the mechanical-room slab. Both permits show issued, neither shows closed, and as of this week the orders are still on the books.

None of that is a verdict on the building — repairs may well be done and the paperwork lagging. But it is a specific set of questions to put to the seller and the board: Has the City signed off? Who paid? Is any of it in litigation? A status certificate that mentions none of it, or buries it in a lawsuit line, deserves a closer read. (Data via PropertyMonitorTO, from the City's Building Construction/Demolition Violations and Active Permits datasets.)

How to use both, in order

1. Pull the City record first — before you even write the offer. Search the address in the property snapshot, then open orders and permits. It takes five minutes and costs nothing.
2. Order the status certificate with the conditional offer, and give your lawyer the City record alongside it.
3. Reconcile. Every open order and every unclosed structural permit should map to something in the certificate — a reserve-fund expenditure, a special assessment, an insurance claim, or a lawsuit. If it doesn't map to anything, ask why in writing before the condition expires.
4. Check the neighbours. Use nearby to see if the crane, the excavation, or the development next door is the source of the problem.

After you close

An order on the building can be issued any time, and the board isn't obligated to circulate it. Monitoring your address means a new order, violation, or permit shows up in your inbox — not in the next status certificate, when you're the one selling.

This is general information, not legal advice — have a real estate lawyer review any status certificate before you waive conditions.