Preparing for Occupancy

Our customer care team will reach out to you to schedule your PDO appointment with you approximately 2 weeks before your Occupancy or Closing date. Your PDO appointment will take place approximately 1 week before your scheduled Key Release.

Interim Occupancy, sometimes simply referred to as Occupancy, is the period of time between when you get the keys to your new condominium unit to when you officially close on the unit. Please note that you do not become the legal owner of your home at time of Occupancy, this happens on Final Closing which is when ownership is transferred to you and you begin paying your mortgage. Occupancy for your unit is permitted once the local municipality has deemed that the unit is fit for residents to move in. This is decided on a block by block basis, based on the progress of construction. During Interim Occupancy there will most likely still be construction occurring on site. Your Tarion Warranty begins as soon as you receive occupancy on your unit.

Since title has not been transferred to you during Interim Occupancy, you cannot sell your unit unless you have a clause in your APS permitting assignment and have received approval from Adi to do so. Depending on your agreement, there may be administrative fees incurred. It’s important to know that if you assign your unit during occupancy and your assignee cannot close on their unit, you will still be responsible for occupancy fess, any amounts due on closing and the maintenance of your unit during that time.

The Interim Occupancy period comes to an end once the Condominium Corporation is registered with the Land Registry Office. At this point, we will reach out to you to schedule your closing date, where title (ownership) will be transferred to you and you will begin to pay your mortgage.

We ask that you advise us of your lawyer’s contact information as soon as possible prior to your occupancy date and discuss and finalize how to take title before occupancy date (taking into consideration mortgage requirements, etc.) with your lawyer at that time. On occupancy, you will want to advise us if you (or a family member) will be occupying the unit and therefore qualify for an HST rebate. You also will be asked to provide an updated mortgage pre-approval from an Adi Approved Lender (see appendix) at this time.

Since you do not own your unit during Interim Occupancy, you will not be paying a mortgage during that time. Instead, you will be responsible for paying Interim Occupancy fees on a monthly basis. The Interim Occupancy fee is a payment made by the purchaser to the developer during the interim closing period; that is from the date of Interim Occupancy until final closing, at which time the full amount of the purchase price is paid and title is transferred.

Essentially, Interim Occupancy fees cover the monthly costs of the unit – the fees incurred by Adi with keeping the unit before the title is transferred to you. These fees are determined by the Condominium Act and cover three elements:

1) Mortgage Interest: the amount of interest that the purchaser would have paid monthly on the first mortgage (regardless of whether or not you will ultimately be paying cash on the final closing) calculated at the Bank of Canada’s 1-yr mortgage rate; and

2) Taxes: an amount reasonably estimated by the vendor for municipal taxes on a monthly basis attributable by the vendor to the real property, calculated at 1% of total sales price. If overpayment has occurred, reimbursement will happen after final MPAC tax assessment up to 12 months after title transfer.; and

3) Maintenance Fee: The projected monthly common element expenses for maintenance.

Now its time for the moment you’ve been waiting for: moving into your new home! To ensure that this process is as easy and stress-free as possible, your Adi Customer Care Representative will be working with you to seamlessly transition you into your new home. Upon receiving Interim Occupancy, our Customer Care team will be contacting you to schedule a key pickup appointment and take you for a tour of the exterior of the site to introduce you to your new community – pointing out important locations like where garbage disposal will be available during Interim Occupancy, future mailbox locations, and more. Property management will not need to be contacted to schedule your move in, however, we do not recommended that you book your move for the same day as your key pickup as this appointment may take place later in the day.

Your condominium documents will have more information about moving-in, but, in brief, you should plan your move to take place between the hours of 8:00AM to 8:00PM Monday through Saturday so as to not disturb your neighbours. Beyond this, you will not be required to schedule a specific time for your move in advance. We always recommend that you do not schedule your move-in during the same day as your occupancy, since we cannot guarantee the time that your keys will be released from the lawyer and eligible for pickup.

As with moving into any new home, we encourage you to measure your furniture before moving in to ensure it will fit in your new space.

Although renting during your Interim Occupancy period is typically prohibited, you may have a clause in your Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) that permits it. If that is the case, and you have a tenant moving into the home, you will need to provide both Property Management and Adi’s Customer Care Department with notice and tenant information. We would recommend that if you are renting during interim occupancy that you provide your tenants with the contact information for our Customer Care team, so that they can schedule repairs during the times most convenient for them.

Once the building has been registered with the local Land Registry Office, Adi can begin transferring titles to each new unit owner. At this time, you’ll be responsible for paying the balance remaining on the purchase price less amount of your mortgage and any closing costs (such as municipal charges). After this takes place, your unit is legally yours and you will no longer pay Interim Occupancy fees – you’ve closed on your unit! At this point you will begin to make your regularly scheduled mortgage payments.

Typically, the final closing process occurs 3-6 months from the beginning of occupancy.

In order to close on your unit, you will need to provide Adi with a mortgage commitment letter since you are about to begin paying your mortgage. This can be from a different bank than the one that gave you your initial pre-approval. You will also need to provide your lawyers information, as your lawyer will need to be in touch with ours to facilitate the title transfer process.

It’s common for pre-construction home purchases to include closing costs, which are fees that the buyer is responsible for paying upon closing on their unit. There are two types of closing costs that you should be aware of: stipulated amounts and additional charges. Stipulated amounts are disclosed to the buyer directly on the Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) because the amounts have already been determined. These fixed costs often include the fee you will be charged if any of your deposit cheques return NSF, and the price to register your deed with the Law Society.

The additional charges are potential fees that you can be charged on closing where the amounts are not yet determined. These often include municipal development charges (which may have increased since you purchased your home), realty taxes (which can be increased or decreased between time of sale and closing), and the fees for setting up the utility connects to your unit. You may have a clause in your APS that limits the amount that certain charges can total, so it’s important to review your agreement with your lawyer ensure you fully understand the terms. You will be provided with a Statement of Adjustments by your lawyer, which will inform you of the total closing costs owing on your unit. Tarion stipulates that all potential types of closing costs, stipulated or not, are listed on the APS. More details are included in your APS in the Schedule B to the Tarion Addendum.

To help assist us in ensuring that your homeowner experience runs as smoothly as possible, please ensure that you have provided us with all of the necessary documentation to facilitate your homeowner experience.

If you had any deposits due at time of occupancy (including upgrades) you will be required to pay the balance remaining prior to occupancy being granted.

Prior to occupancy, you will be asked to provide an up to date mortgage approval or commitment from an Adi Approved Lender if the one provided at time of sale has expired. To reduce the risk of phantom mortgages and fraudulent approvals, Adi only accepts mortgage pre-approval letters from Schedule A and B banks, and will not accept approvals from mortgage brokers.

Throughout the process, our lawyer will be in touch with your lawyer to confirm details or to relay important information to you. As a result, it is essential that you have provided accurate contact information for your lawyer to the Adi team (including name and phone number). A lawyer is necessary at this stage of the process, occupancy will not be granted if you do not have legal counsel.