Popular Methods to Calculate Maintenance Fee in Apartment Complexes

Apartment owners and tenants have to pay maintenance fee for the amenities and service enjoyed by them in their apartment. Expense incurred for the maintenance of common area is shared among residents of apartment and income is distributed among apartment owners. Apartment owners form an association for collecting the maintenance fee and association works for the welfare of owners and residents of apartment.

Popular procedures for calculating maintenance fee

There are different procedures or methods adopted by association or society for collecting monthly maintenance fee. Some of the important practices that are prevalent are following.

• Flat Monthly Fee:
  Under flat monthly fee, apartment owners association or society calculates sum or total maintenance charge and divides equally among all flat owners. In an apartment, there maybe flats with different sizes. Under this system irrespective of size of the flat, all flat owners will be paying equal maintenance fee. This system is generally followed where apartments are of the same size (Sq. ft).
• Per Square feet rate:
  Variable rate would be depending on square feet of each apartment or flat. Under this method, rate or fee varies depending on square feet owned by apartment owners. Larger the square feet owned, higher will be monthly maintenance fee. This is widely practiced in Apartment societies with different sizes of apartments. The general logic behind being that since you have bought the flat based of the sq. ft.area, you must pay the maintenance on the same basis.
• Partial flat rate:
  Under this method, association or society charges flat rate for a limit square feet and each additional unit will be charged extra. For e.g.: Flat owners who owns up to 1000 sqft will be charged fixed rate and for addition of 100 sqft will charged extra 2 per cent. In this case, all flat owners with 1000 sqft pay equal amount but flat owners of 1100sqft, 1200 sqft and 1500 sqft pay different amount towards monthly maintenance fee.
• Mixed approach:It’s a central approach to maintenance charging which is generally followed in apartment societies with variable sized apartments. Here there is a per square feet charge, which is generally low. Besides, the total expenses is divided equally between the flats.

The common expenses will include the amounts determined to be payable as such by the Society or Association. It includes expenses such as expense of administration, maintenance, repair or replacement of common areas and facilities. So long as there is no dispute, any system acceptable to all the apartment owners can be implemented on the basis of agreement or consensus.

Method of calculating maintenance fee varies depending on the agreement or byelaw of association.

How is your apartment maintenance fee calculated? Does your association calculate monthly fees in a similar way or in a different way? Kindly share it in comments.