Water Damage in a Condo: Who Actually Pays, and Why the Repair Stalls

The water came from the unit above. Everyone knows it, the neighbour admits it, and the question looks settled: they pay. That's the assumption almost every condo client calls us with, and it is wrong more often than it is right — not because anyone is cheating, but because Quebec co-ownership law does not work that way.

What almost everyone assumes

The assumption is simple: the damage has an origin, the origin has an owner, so that owner repairs it. That is how intuition works, and how most conversations between neighbours go in the days after a loss. The problem is that co-ownership is precisely the regime where that intuition has been replaced with something else.

What the Civil Code says

Articles 1074.1 and 1074.2 of the Civil Code of Québec collectivise the cost of a loss. In practice the costs are borne by the co-owners as a group — through common charges or the self-insurance fund — rather than by the person the water started with. As the firm Dunton Rainville puts it, it is the co-owners, through their contribution to common charges, who pay the deductibles and the repairs.

• The syndicate's policy covers the building and the common portions. It answers for the structure, and it is its deductible that is in play in most serious water losses.
• Your own policy covers your belongings and your improvements — what you have added to the unit since it was built, which often includes the flooring, the cabinets and the bathroom you redid.
• Common charges and the self-insurance fund absorb the rest, including the syndicate's deductible. Which is to say: you, and all your neighbours, including the ones nothing happened to.

Liability is not presumed

This is the point almost nobody knows, and it is the one that changes the conversation with the neighbour. Per Dunton Rainville, a co-owner's liability is not presumed even when the origin of the loss is known. To claim the deductible from a co-owner, the syndicate has to demonstrate fault — not merely an origin — and recent case law declines to fill gaps in the evidence by deduction. Knowing where the water came from is a starting point, not a conclusion. Charging a co-owner remains the exception, reserved for where their fault is established.

The deductible is the real issue

Since the reform, syndicates have had to maintain a self-insurance fund intended in part to absorb the deductible on their own policy. The reason is arithmetic: those deductibles have climbed. Radio-Canada reports they now reach tens of thousands of dollars, and up to half a million in some downtown Montreal towers. It is that figure, not the question of who left the bath running, that determines how quickly your unit gets repaired.

Why the repair isn't moving

Here is the part insurers and lawyers don't write, because they aren't in the unit afterwards. A water loss in a co-ownership opens two files in parallel: the syndicate's for the structure and common portions, and yours for what belongs to you. Two adjusters, two timelines, and a grey zone in the middle — the drywall, the insulation, the flooring — that each side sometimes treats as the other's. Meanwhile the material stays wet, and the EPA's 24-to-48-hour mould benchmark keeps running, indifferent to the discussion.

• Dry it before settling liability. Drying is mitigation, it documents itself, and no insurer faults a policyholder for limiting the damage while the file was opening.
• One dated set of moisture readings and photographs, from day one to the end. Two files can rest on the same documentation; neither can rest on recollection.
• A written scope that clearly separates what belongs to the structure from what belongs to your improvements. That separation, not the argument about fault, is usually what unblocks both files.
• Ask the syndicate what the deductible on its policy is. That number often decides whether a claim is made at all or absorbed — and you're entitled to know it before agreeing anything with anyone.

A building that knows the state of its finances makes these decisions faster. Since Bill 16, every syndicate must obtain a contingency fund study by August 2028, and the ones that already have it know what they can absorb without a special assessment. What Bill 16 requires of syndicates, and by when

If you sit on the board rather than merely attending, the next question is practical: who does the work, in an occupied building, and how it gets invoiced. What a syndicate should expect from a contractor

One qualification that matters: none of the above tells you what your policy covers. The split depends on your declaration of co-ownership and the policies in force, and those documents differ from one building to the next. Read your declaration and call your insurer before agreeing anything with your neighbour. What we do is narrower: we dry, we document what got wet with readings and photographs, and we put the unit back in a form both adjusters can process. We don't decide what's covered — but we can keep the question from delaying the drying.