In a recent entry on the Toronto Neighbourhoods and Real Estate blog Move Smartly, lawyer 
Rachel Loizos offers some wise advice for prospective condo purchasers: “Before you commit to purchasing a condo unit, make sure you have reviewed the rules.”
She then lists the rules that most commonly affect purchasers and goes on to say:
The cost for non-compliance can be high as the condo corporation has the right to obtain a court order to force you to comply. You may also get stuck with their legal costs in the matter.
It is worth emphasizing that those legal costs can and often do reach the tens of thousands of dollars. In the recent case of Italiano v. TSCC 1507 (summarized here), the condo successfully pursued a unit owner for violating the noise and nuisance provisions in the condo declaration and rules. In the end, the at-fault unit owner was ordered to pay over $80,000 in legal costs to the condo corporation. This was on top of what the owner had to pay his own lawyer. Ouch!
Purchasers who don’t carefully examine the condominium declaration and rules before buying are taking an enormous risk.