Residents of a north Edmonton condo building that was evacuated earlier this year due to structural concerns say they've received bills for thousands of dollars after a special assessment was done on the building. Forty-four units in the Castledowns Pointe condominium building were damaged by fire on March 12. In September, engineers working on the fire-damaged area found structural issues dating back to when the condo was built, and an immediate evacuation order was issued for the units not impacted by the fire. The structural problems include issues with the building's foundation, walls, studs and columns. Three months later, condo owners received bills ranging from $8,000 to $12,000 after a special assessment was done on the building. On Monday, three condo owners spoke to CTV News Edmonton after receiving the bill. "I was blindsided. And I think a lot of the owners felt that way," said Salwa Mohamud, who's owned her condo since 2012. "We were anticipating a special assessment. But the amount, we were not." Mohamud says she received an assessment of $8,500 for her two-bedroom unit. She says she was in the process of selling her unit when the evacuation order was issued. "The possession date was at the end of the month. We got the evacuation order in September, so at the beginning of that month our buyers pulled out." Now she's unable to sell her unit. Rebecca Gillis, who moved into the building in 1998, says her bill is $11,600. Gillis says she was notified the amount was due by Jan. 8, putting her in a tough financial position while she juggles the mortgage on her condo and paying rent on a temporary home. "Having to pay extra rent, and then a mortgage, and then condo fees, and then this levy, and then we're told if we don't pay by Jan. 8, then interest starts incurring. So that's stressful, too. It's like, how do you pay this?" Chantal Piché, who has lived in the building since 2020, says even if owners are able to pay the assessment fee, there are likely to be more costs to come. "This is the tip of the iceberg," she said. "The scope of work is going to be at least $7 million. So if you're averaging that out between 83 units, that's $80,000 per owner." Piché says she lives on a disability pension and she's not sure how she's going to be able to cover the costs. "There's some really heavy options that I have to look into about my financial future," she said. "A much significantly higher amount that will be coming probably next year, just don't know when, and don't know exactly how much." Now the owners are looking for answers. "People have purchased this home in good faith, trusting that everyone has done their due diligence," Mohamud said. "I'm talking about city authorities, I'm talking about the developer." "Everyone has hired an inspector before purchasing a home. And so we have done our part, and we had faith that we were given a home to live in." "Was the blueprint wrong? Was the people that signed off on it, the City of Edmonton wrong?" Gillis wonders. "Who is responsible? Somebody needs to step up because this is so unfair." OWNERS VOTED AGAINST USING RESERVE FUNDS: BOARD The president of the Castledowns Pointe condo board says a vote was held after the evacuation on whether to use money from the condo's reserve fund to offset some of the costs of the special assessment. "We put forward a special resolution that we use $200,000 from our reserve fund for engineering fees. That would have made everybody's special assessment less," Susan Strebchuk told CTV News Edmonton. "The majority of owners were not in favour of using $200,000 from our reserve fund for that," she says. She says it's crucial that owners pay their bills because the evacuation has come with many unanticipated fees. "We did not expect that we would have to have the level of security in the building in order to maintain insurance," she said. "We just don't have another way to generate income to pay for the bills." Strebchuk says she and the rest of the board members are in the same position as the owners. "I, too, am an owner. So this special assessment affects me as well." "I can't say this special assessment is something that I would have planned for in my financial plan. So we on the board are all owners, we're all impacted by this." Strebchuk says board members are meeting regularly to get as much information as possible to put before owners on whether to tear down the building or rebuild. "We put in an insurance claim for the structural side, we are waiting to hear if the insurance company will approve that." "There could be another special assessment if it ends up that we choose to rebuild and the insurance company only gives us a portion of that cost." "Do we go ahead with repairing the building? Do we walk away? We've had to spend money in order to get information that people could use in making a decision." She says the board is considering legal action against the developer, but it's not the first option on the table. "It's not an easy task because you really have to prove that there was intentional fraud. And that is difficult to prove." "We'd far rather go through an insurance claim than a legal battle that could end up with a building sitting vacant, not being repaired for a long time." Strebchuk says she also has questions about how the deficiencies happened. "Only because of a fire, we discover structural deficiencies to the point where at any point a floor could have collapsed in our building and people died. How is it that this could happen?" "It took a year to put this building up. Where was the oversight? Where were the inspections?" "Twenty-some years ago you did not build this building properly. And now we don't have much recourse to move forward. That's wrong." With files from CTV News Edmonton's Miriam Valdes-Carletti and Sean Amato
