Have you ever faced a situation where a contractor requested taxes over the quoted price? How much should your condominium corporation budget for if all that the contractor quoted was a flat amount without details as to whether it includes HST or not?

HST has to be paid and parties cannot contract out of it.  However, contractors are free to quote a price that includes taxes or to quote a price to which taxes must be added. When a contract is silent as to taxes, usually the condominium corporation should expect that the applicable taxes will be added to the quoted price. Keep this in mind when you are getting quotes for your significant projects.

At the end of the day, the language of the quote or of the contract is key in determining whether taxes are included or whether they should be added. If the contractor quotes, say, $6,000 “all in”, then taxes are included in the quoted price.  If all the contractor says is that he or she will do the work for $60,000, then you can expect to have to add HST on top of that.

Your best protection is to obtain proper written quotes from reputable contractors and not to rely on informal email exchanges when budgeting for a project.  You are also best to have important contracts reviewed by the corporation’s engineers and lawyers prior to signing on the dotted line.

Now you know…