Condo floor plans can be too good to be true: lawyer

Slick suites promised by condominium developers may turn out not to be the urban dream buyers thought they were purchasing, a real estate lawyer warns.

Discrepancies found between floor plans or model suites and the actual apartment units or condos are not uncommon, said Charles Hanes, a Toronto real estate agent, who also runs a website on condo buying.

"There's a lot of creativity in this business all the way through," Hanes told CBC News: Marketplace.

"They [developers] can hire the best marketing people [and] the best staging people. You can make a 700-square-foot place look like a palace. You can have an unlimited ceiling height in it and neglect to tell the people what the ceiling heights are."

There are things consumers can do to try and protect themselves, said Bob Aaron, of Aaron and Aaron in Toronto. He stressed the importance of having a lawyer look at any purchase documents before signing them.

"The wording of these offers is good for insomnia because they are turgid and they are difficult to understand and they're written in legalese, not English," he said.

Jasmine Wong and Kenny Chang, from Burnaby, B.C., learned a tough lesson after falling in love with the floor plan of a proposed Vancouver condo.

"Based on this floor plan, it suited us perfectly," Wong said. "As you can see, there is the bedroom right here and it's an en suite to the bathroom. And it's connected by this walk-in closet here.

"Another thing we were pretty excited about, the den seemed to have pretty good size for the nursery for the first year of our child, which we were planning."

After their condo was built, Wong said their new home didn't turn out to be exactly what the floor plan portrayed. There was no walk-in closet.

"At first we were at a loss for words and then we walked out and just said, 'Where is our walk-in closet?'" Wong said. "That's all I could ask. That's all I could get out 'cause I was in such shock."

What's more, she said the den was small enough to be a walk-in closet.

According to their purchase agreement, " … the Vendor may from time to time at its discretion … make variations to the plans and specifications."

Chang said the developer gave them no notice of the change. When they complained, they were offered their deposit back.

"The whole point for them, of getting their money back, is so they can re-sell it at a higher price," Chang said.

From the time Chang and Wong bought the condo to its completion date, the value of the unit increased $90,000. Worried they would be priced out of the market, they decided to keep the condo and settled for a small financial settlement from the developer to compensate for the missing walk-in closet.

Danny D'Angelo, a condo owner in Penticton, B.C., had a similar experience.

When he moved into his new condo he expected a secured parking space. But when he showed up with his keys in hand, his parking space was actually outside the garage.

"They even gave us a clicker!" D'Angelo said. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Essentially the builders and developers write the rules for themselves … the way I see it the consumer is hung out on a limb every time," said Aaron.