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I am a trustee for a condo building wherein each unit has its own electricity meter. A few owners wanted to install additional appliances in their units, so I conducted a visual inspection of the current electrical configurations and came across this box in the photo. This box is wired directly to one unit's meter. It stands out from the rest of the electrical boxes (it looks different).

I am looking for feedback here before hiring an electrician (hopefully I will have a better idea of what he is talking about).

Can anyone help me understand what this box is and if it is commonly used?

enter image description here

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    Other then telling what the box is, is there something more you need to know, a problem you need to solve? – Alaska Man Nov 5 '20 at 19:01
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    Just because the box is on "One unit" does not necessarily mean that it is associated with that unit. We can not tell you anything more about it. You can ask the owner or maintenance person. – Alaska Man Nov 5 '20 at 19:57
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    there is no What could it be? ... it is definitely an electrical box – jsotola Nov 5 '20 at 23:10
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    Playing the game of "looking for how people aren't like others" isn't a good way to determine if something is inappropriate. Hire a real electrician if you want to find illegal installations. – Steve Sether Nov 6 '20 at 2:43
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    If someone is being really naughty you will find this is connected to the meter for unit X, but is actually feeding unit Y! That's probably not the case, but these days you can't rule it out. – tnknepp Nov 6 '20 at 11:51
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That is a junction box.

It serves as a place where junctions can be made to wires that enter and exit the box.

The junctions, by code, have to be housed in a container to keep them safe but accessible.

We do no know why there is a junction box there other than to provide a code compliant box to house some wire junctions (splices).

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Somebody came up short

As others have indicated, this is a junction box. In this case, it's likely housing a set of splices between the two sets of incoming wires, as a cable came up short during installation, or was damaged at some point so had to be partially replaced. Depending on the gauge of the wires and the locale, it could also very well be a bit undersized (as 4AWG or larger wires need to be spliced in a pull box to have sufficient space to work with them), but that's neither here nor there.

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