Should your condo association require a move-in, move-out fee?
Moving expenses are more expensive, thanks to stricter COVID-19 waste management rules
Moving is expensive. In addition to ponying up a security deposit and at least the first month’s rent (or mortgage payment and closing costs), tenants and owners also have to pay for moving trucks, packing supplies, drivers and potentially storage space. So a condo association and/or landlord adding on a move-in or move-out fee is an absolute drag. Depending on condo bylaws or regulations, boards or landlords may already require this extra charge — further emptying out one’s wallet. But every blue moon, some tenants luck out.
When I first moved into a condo rental, I hadn’t had my L-shaped sectional sofa for more than a year. I loved laying on the ottoman and using it as my second “office” space. So clearly this almost-new couch was coming with me from my first-floor apartment to a third-floor condo rental. The movers looked from me to the couch and shook their heads, telling me, “It definitely won’t fit up the steps. It’s a house couch. It’s too long to get around the banisters.”
I ignored them, insisting it would work. They packed the couch up with everything else. It was the last thing to come inside. Even after taking off all the pillows and turning it in every possible direction for more than an hour (with the condo plumber, two movers and a guy friend of mine on each side), it just wasn’t going up the steps. We did, however, scratch the ceiling in multiple spots. The plumber even disassembled one of the banisters to try to make it work.
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I was growing more wary by the minute that I would be charged for the damages that this stubborn plumber was doing to get my couch up the stairs. Surprisingly, my condo landlord was more sympathetic that my almost-new couch had to be left by the dumpster than by the overzealous plumber. There was nothing else left to do but stack the pillows into a fort-like shape in my living room and abandon the couch frame by the dumpster.