How to calculate the maintenance fee of a condominium in Costa Rica

The maintenance fee is the financial heart of any condominium: security, cleaning, water for common areas and the fund to repair whatever eventually breaks all depend on it. Yet in many Costa Rican condominiums the fee was set years ago by rough estimate and never revisited. This guide explains how to calculate it properly, step by step.

What the law says

Costa Rica’s Condominium Property Law (Law No. 7933) establishes that common expenses are shared among owners in proportion to the percentage each unit represents in the total value of the condominium. That percentage is the ownership coefficient (coeficiente de copropiedad), registered at the National Registry together with the founding deed.

Two practical consequences follow:

• A 250 m² house with a 2.4% coefficient pays more than a 60 m² apartment with a 0.8% coefficient, even though both use the same pool.
• The bylaws may set particular rules (for example, expenses of a single building within a multi-building condominium), but they cannot contradict the law.

If your condominium charges the same fee to every unit and the coefficients are not equal, the charge is incorrect and an owner could challenge it.

Step 1: build the annual budget

The fee is not calculated “per unit”: you calculate the total expense for the year and then distribute it. Group expenses into categories:

Use the actual expenses of the last 12 months as a baseline and adjust for inflation and expiring contracts. Be honest about preventive maintenance: it is the line most often cut and the one that costs the most later.

Step 2: define the reserve fund

The reserve fund pays for what is not budgeted month to month: replacing the water pump, waterproofing the roof, renewing the electric gate. A common practice is to allocate 5% to 10% of the operating budget to the fund, and more if the condominium is over 15 years old or has expensive equipment such as elevators.

A healthy reserve fund prevents every board’s worst nightmare: the surprise special assessment, which always breeds conflict and delinquency.

Step 3: prorate by coefficient

With the annual budget ready, the formula for each unit is simple:

Monthly fee for the unit = (Annual budget × Unit coefficient) ÷ 12

Example. A 48-unit condominium budgets ₡72,000,000 per year (reserve fund included).

• Apartment with coefficient 1.50% → ₡72,000,000 × 1.50% ÷ 12 = ₡90,000 per month
• Penthouse with coefficient 3.25% → ₡72,000,000 × 3.25% ÷ 12 = ₡195,000 per month

The sum of all fees must equal exactly the annual budget divided by 12. If it doesn’t add up, check that the coefficients total 100%.

Step 4: approve at the assembly and document it

The budget and the resulting fee are approved at the owners’ assembly, normally the annual general one. The minutes should state the total amount, the effective date, the monthly due date and the late charges. That record is essential if you later need to collect through the courts, as we explain in how to collect condo delinquency.

Common mistakes

1. Using floor area instead of the coefficient. They look alike but are not the same: the coefficient may account for location, view or finishes.
2. Forgetting suppliers’ VAT. Budget services with taxes included.
3. Not separating individual water use. If the meter is shared, each unit’s consumption should be billed separately by reading, not diluted into the fee.
4. Not adjusting annually. A fee frozen for five years amounts to a real 20–30% budget cut.
5. Manual spreadsheets. One mistyped decimal in a coefficient produces wrong charges for months.

How software automates it

In a system like CondoCMS, coefficients are loaded once per unit and charges are generated automatically every month, with late fees, account statements and resident notifications. Management approves the budget and the system does the arithmetic, always the same and always traceable. See plans and pricing or request a demo.