If you have parking or a storage locker space that also adds to your maintenance fees.

And I'm not sure if this is really true or not, I've heard that even the amount of balcony space also affects your fees as well as you have more exclusive rights to limited common elements that everyone pays for the maintenance and repairs for.

I agree that the whole calculation of maintenance fee structure is not really fair. A single person living in a 1,200 sq.ft. unit would be paying a lot more in fees than a couple and their young child living in 750 sq.ft. doesn't make sense.

Having it based on the number of bedrooms is a good idea, but anyone could add a bedroom or at least a bed without the management knowing about it and also dens could be used as a bedroom as well making it difficult to calculate a fair fee. I think it should be based on the number of residents living in the building, as many property management companies collect information on who lives in the unit for fire safety purposes.

I think there should be an extra fee for those who rent out their units, as tenants put a higher demand on the building's maintenance. They typically care less about the building, landlords don't really check up with their tenants that much, and these units face a higher turnover.

I think gas is not included, the last couple places I lived at, both a new condo and and an older condo, I received bills from Enbridge. Also electricity usually powers your heat and A/C so that is also not included in your condo fees. The first condo I lived at I moved in during a heat wave and I had my thermostat set very cool, it was not until I got my first electric bill that I discovered that I was paying almost $200.

To Andrew, I am shocked at how much condo fees are in Manhattan, and I am not just talking about larger apartments. I was looking at a 500 sq.ft. condo in a decent part of the city, it seemed like a steal at around $400,000, however the condo fees were $1,200 a month! This was in a pre-war building that had no amenities but it did have a doorman.
However many of the apartments in New York have a real doorman & concierge, not a glorified securityguard sitting behind a desk which we have here. They offer a very high level of service and they are a very trusted and treated very well by the residents.

On the other hand, the condo fees in Vancouver are relatively cheap compared to Toronto. These condos offer no different amenities and services than the condos we have here. I think the property management companies have a major influence in setting condo fees.