Interim Occupancy.

There is a period where you have the keys, you are living in the unit, you are paying the builder every month - and you do not own it.

It is called interim occupancy. Your unit is finished, but the building has not yet been registered as a condominium corporation, so title cannot transfer. You move in anyway, and you pay the builder a monthly occupancy fee until registration happens.

That fee is not a mortgage payment. It does not reduce your purchase price. It builds no equity. On a large project the wait can run well over a year.

Almost nobody has this explained to them properly before they sign.

And here is the clause to hunt for.

During construction, builders routinely send amendments - extending dates, adjusting specifications, changing the deposit schedule. They arrive looking like routine paperwork, usually with a signing deadline attached.

Many of them contain clauses that waive your delayed occupancy compensation rights under the Tarion addendum.

Buyers sign them because after two years of waiting nobody wants to be the difficult one. Never sign a builder amendment without legal review. That is the single most valuable sentence in this book.

• The two closings, and why interim occupancy exists at all
• What the occupancy fee is made of, and how it gets reconciled against you
• The statutory review period, and how to actually use it
• Tarion and HCRA - two bodies, and which one you need
• The warranty layers, and the compensation that is not automatic
• The pre-delivery inspection - your one chance to document deficiencies
• Closing costs of five to eight percent, which cannot be financed
• Capping development charges, and why it is negotiable
• HST, and why the treatment depends entirely on what you do with the unit
• Assignment - the fees, the conditions, and the tax point people miss
• Deposits, and how far the protection actually goes
• What the builder is allowed to change without asking you
• The corporation you are joining, and why first-year budgets are optimistic
• Whether to buy pre-construction at all

Twenty chapters in plain English, with a full checklist covering every stage from signing to final closing, a glossary, and template letters to your lawyer, your builder and your tax adviser.

Every figure carries a note explaining why it may have moved and exactly who to ask - because Tarion compensation rules, HST rebate treatment and development charges all change, and the HST rules moved in 2026.

Written by someone who has served on the boards that run apartment buildings since 2019, and who has written handbooks on shared-ownership housing for seven other jurisdictions.

General information only. Not legal, financial or tax advice.