Occupancy Fees: Because Owning a Condo Would Be Too Simple

By Mirjana (Mira) Markovic

If you’ve ever bought a pre-construction condominium (“condo”) in Ontario, you’ve met the infamous occupancy fee—also known as “phantom rent,” or “the fee that greets you before the front-desk concierge does.”

Interim Occupancy: A Condo’s Awkward Teenage Phase

Interim occupancy is that strange, in-between stage where:

• Your condo is ready (yay!)
• The building isn’t legally registered (boo!)
• You are allowed to move in early, but you do not actually own the unit yet (strange).
• You pay a monthly fee that is comprised of property taxes, maintenance fees, and interest on the unpaid balance of the purchase price (sounds expensive).

Interim occupancy is just a polite way of saying: “You can stay here, but you’re paying the builder for the privilege until the paperwork catches up.”

In other words, you get all the responsibility of ownership with none of the legal ownership. A bold business model, really.

But what happens when you decide you don’t feel like starring in the occupancy phase at all? What if the builder agrees to skip your scheduled occupancy date and take you straight to final closing?

December 12^th vs. December 15^th: The Condo Plot Twist

Let’s talk about a scenario that causes more panic than a last-minute mortgage condition.

Picture this:

• Interim occupancy date: December 12^th.
• Final closing date: December 15^th.
• You: “Hey, builder… how about we skip the occupancy bit?”
• Builder: “Sure.”
• You: “Does this mean I escape the mysterious three days of occupancy fees?”

Let’s take a closer look.

The One Rule that Actually Matters

Occupancy fees are not based on:

• What was originally scheduled?
• What did someone mean to do?
• What is buried on page 47 of the Agreement of Purchase and Sale?
• How sentimental is one about fairness?

It is based on the simple concept of possession. In condo law, this means keys in hand or the legal right to enter and occupy the unit.

To put it simply, if you do not obtain the keys on December 12^th, you never occupy. If you never occupied, you do not owe occupancy fees.

Translation Into Normal Human Language

If you never touched the keys before December 15^th → you owe $0.00

• No occupancy period = no occupancy fees.

  If you obtained the keys for even 12 minutes → congratulations, you owe occupancy fees.

• Even one day triggers them.

Condo law is many things. Forgiving is not one of them.

Why Builders Sometimes Agree to Play Nice and Skip Occupancy

Contrary to legend, builders aren’t allergic to being agreeable. Sometimes, it’s just easier for them to go straight to closing if registration is ready.

When the stars align, it saves paperwork, accounting headaches, and fee disputes, keeps everyone calmer (a rare achievement), and saves you, the purchaser, money. It is not magic, it is logistics.

The Takeaway (Tape This to Your Fridge)

So, to summarize our scenario. If your scheduled interim occupancy was on December 12^th, your final closing was December 15^th, and the builder agreed to go straight to closing, and you did not take possession on December 12^th:

• No keys=no occupancy
• No occupancy=no fees.
• You only owe the occupancy fee if you occupied from December 12^th to December 15^th.

In the condo universe, dates move, emails get vague, and closing statements grow legs, but keys don’t lie.  It’s not the scheduled dates that matter — it’s the keys.

I hope that this article has provided you with some helpful information. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at mira@sorbaralaw.com