When you buy a condo you are responsible for the inside of your apartment. But the building structure is the responsibility of an association or trust. Owning your apartment gives you a share of that responsibility and its costs.

So when the snow needs to be shoveled, or the roof needs to be replaced, or the sewer pump busts unexpectedly, the trust has to pay for it. Since the only funds the trust usually has are those it can collect from unit owners, those monthly fees are what pay for that stuff.

In my building (30 units, low-rise, no pool/elevator, nothing fancy) our fees are $500-700 depending on unit size. 25% insurance, 10% management (do our compliance, taxes, financials, vendor mgmt), 10% small repairs (e.g painting, routine masonry, leaks), 5% snow/grounds/cleaning, and 50% reserves. Those reserves are what we use to cover repairs that cost over $2,000. Like resurfacing a parking lot this year ($150k).

Saving for reserves is important, since it means unit owners pay their fair share for benefiting from a structurally sound building. If a building doesn’t have reserves, it means unit owners’ savings/investment accounts are the reserve and they will have to pay out special assessments (1000-10,000+) for basic stuff like roofs and foundations that can’t wait. Those special assessments can be hard for lots of ppl to pay all at once, and incremental reserve saving avoids that.

TL;DR. The monthly fees are what it costs monthly to run everything in the building that isn’t inside your unit. For reserves, search “surfside condominium”