30 Jul What are development charges or development cost levies or development levies?

Development levies are government charges that can be charged to the development of a condominium  and passed to buyer as closing cost. Fee could be as little as couple of hundred dollors  and as high as $25,000. It’s very important clause in your purchase agreement to “cap” those levy charges so that they don’t spiral out of control.  When people sign Agreements of Purchase and Sale for yet to be built condo (or homes for that matter) they often get caught up in the moment and sign the documents.

Developers usually offers to Cap Levies as an incentive in the platinum/vip phase but even if not included as incentive,  your real estate salesperson can still negotiate with developers to cap levies before signing the contract or within the  cooling off phase.

development levy fees have been as little as $50 and as high as $25,000 per suite. One of the If for example, you levies are capped at $5,000 and the levy charge is $25,000 – then you only pay $5,000 and the developer pays the additional $20,000.

These levies are used to fund growth-related capital costs

• Educational levy
• Law society of Ontario fee
• parks levy
• discharge of developer’s mortgage fee
• prepaid occupancy fee payment
• Childcare
• Fire Facilities
• Shelters & Housing
• Police
• Emergency Medical Services
• Roads
• Sanitary Sewers