Commercial offices
It is common for some people to work from home. Some office workers and
professionals can work from a computer sitting in their den or bedroom
and they need to go to their employer's premises only a couple times a
week. That is one of the joys of the computer-Internet age.
Not many would find an issue with this use of a private residential
unit but when an owner of a residential unit buys the condo with the
intent that it will be a commercial space, and it is furnished solely
as a commercial office with employees coming up to the unit five days a
week and clients walking into the condo on a regular basis then that is
something else indeed.
There are law offices, mortgage brokers, investment firms, cleaning
companies and even a funeral home running out of local residential
units.
Although they do not pay commercial taxes on their office space, their
offices do not meet municipal building code requirements for commercial
properties, their customers and employees fill the Visitor Parking
areas and the condo is not collecting HST on top of their common
element fees, the business owners see nothing wrong with what they are
doing.
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