Buying above retail units

Buying above ground floor retail condo units can cause extra headaches.

Renovations & repairs
The president of a downtown condo tower in Toronto lives right above a Starbucks outlet. When the coffee shop needs minor renovations done, they wait until the store closes and then the workmen arrive and start banging and hammering.

Sure, the president can yell and holler but there really isn't much that she can do about noise that will last for only one or two nights except lump it.

Odours
What businesses rent or buy units under condos? Restaurants of course. Can't stand the smell of curry, don't like the smell of cooking bacon, French fries or hamburgers? Then its may be a good idea not buying a unit above those units.

Noise issues
If you have a unit above a pub, especially if it has an outdoor patio, you will have loud music, yelling and horn honking until closing time.

Bagel shop causing 100-degree heat in condos above: suit
New York Post
By Kevin Sheehan and Lia Eustachewich
30 June 2015


Two Upper West Side condo owners say a ground-floor bagel shop is making their apartment “uninhabitable” by causing temperatures to reach a stifling 100 degrees, a new lawsuit charges.

Philip and Yarina Birnbaum are airing their beef with Bagel Talk, located directly underneath their unit, 2A, at 200 W. 78th St., in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

The heat, which hovers around 90 degrees year-round, has already driven one tenant out and has caused the condo’s value to plummet, the suit says. It claims that the shop refused to repair its ventilation system.

“I just made a $25,000 deposit to the ventilation company. It should be fixed in a matter of days,” owner Abid Islam, 50, told The Post.

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