Analysis - Minto Information for the Rockhill - Rent Increase of 2024

The Rockhill management team provided the CLR with a copy of the Necessary Information for rent setting for the 2024 increase (reference year 2023), in order to justify their 2024 increase. Download the information here.

The CLR had already estimated the values based on publicly available documents and the RN values for the previous year (read more).

• The basic adjustments inputs are similar to the previously estimated ones, so no surprises there.
• The bulk of what is negotiable is the Improvements and Repairs section.
  • This section must consist of either capital expenditures or operating expenses used to establish a new service. A salary is an operating expense. So, if you claim a salary to establish a new service, it would be eligible, but paying an engineer to study a repair job is not, even if you make a capital investment for the repair. The same goes for an engineer studying the balconies.
  • Heating problems and cleaning are maintenance, not capital or operating expenses, so they should be accounted for in the basic adjustments section.
  • There are two mentions of repairs on balcony E, so the duplicate must be eliminated and the line with the larger amount kept (balconies D & E).
  • Several items are specific to buildings - so a separate calculation is needed for each.
  • Several items, like floods or balcony issues, should have been partially or mostly compensated by insurance indemnities. Yet, this box is left blank. These items would benefit from more clarification; otherwise, in the absence of information, I must assume that only a part is applicable. Ideally, they should inform us about the type of insurance purchased by Minto, the limits and deductibles, and of course, the indemnities received.
  • There's also an error in the insurance premium in the adjustments section, the figure for 2024 is used instead of the figure for 2023, resulting in a 0 adjustment. In the CLR calculation, we put the correct amount, which is in favor of Minto, but the difference is minimal.
  • There's a significant amount for the renovation of common areas and corridors. Honestly, I haven't seen any of that in building B, as you may have noticed on the website. Is this work specific to another building? It should be indicated and calculated separately accordingly.
  • Most of the pool work was done in 2022, and in 2023, for a good part of the time, nothing was happening due to a lack of staff, then the pool was operational. In fact, jurisprudence says that work is accounted for based on the billing of the work and the completion of the majority of the work, not when it's paid, so anything that is work on the concrete etc., if the invoice was in 2022 and a large part put in place in 2022, then we must prorate based on the value of what was actually done in 2023 and not what was paid in 2023, if those were invoices including the work of 2022. And we must talk about capital expenditures here, not operating expenses like for example cleaning, purchase of chemical products, maintenance of pumps, salaries, etc. Also in the same expense item, there's something about common areas again - it seems redundant with the other item of the same name. That would definitely need clarification, and in the absence of information, we're forced to reduce our estimate of this cost.
  • There's also a significant amount for garage works. Without this $3M, the increase might fall to 4%, but in the 2019-2020 judgment, the TAL granted an amount for the garage works, so it seems a bit less likely. So, for negotiation, it doesn't seem prudent to consider it.

I've asked for clarifications on this. Without information, it would be difficult not to refuse the increase because according to my simulations the increase could be calculated as 6.36% if we admitted all expenses, including duplicates and items that are not appropriate for this section. If we eliminate those, then we immediately fall to 5%. And if other items are confirmed, then it might go down maybe to 4.5% depending on details like insurance indemnities received, pro-rata of pool works 2022 versus 2023, etc. We must also demand that expenses specific to a building are not attributed to the whole but to each building. However, the final result isn't very different, but it's the law. Minto has recently waived expenses rather than making this separation for the 2019-2020 setting, so why not here.