Discussion Groups

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING THIS LETTER!!! I think it is worth more than it's weight in gold as evidence for the CRT, and I'd phone the author with a huge thank you! Your bylaws are worth much more than the paper they are written on. The strata council is legally obligated to remedy the contraventions of both the use of property bylaw and your underlay sound rating bylaw. Under no circumstances is your neighbour entitled to create a nuisance or assault you with needless noise that unreasonably interferes with enjoyment of your property as purchased. Your strata council's failure to take remedial action as statutorily mandated is creating another nuisance, which is in itself another contravention of standard bylaws. It sounds significantly unfair to expect innocent law abiding victims to absorb the relentless nuisance that others acting unlawfully for the frivolous sake of fashion are RESPONSIBLE for causing. It is well known that replacing carpets with hard surfac...

What’s presented at our AGM is held out as the insurance policy, but it’s just a summary of coverage. ⁠ In fine print at the bottom of the last page it says, "This record sheet is intended for reference only. Please refer to your polic(ies) for complete details." ⁠ After making s.36 requests to the strata since 2003 to no avail, I finally received our full insurance contract directly from BFL by specifically quoting and requesting every item referred to in the summary that was provided at the AGM. That contract contains 150 pages of policies. ⁠ I haven't done it yet, but I intend to ask for a copy of our strata's history of claims also. **** What’s REALLY going on with strata insurance? How much does anybody know? The hard market arising out of catastrophic wildfires, floods, hurricanes, and other environmental disasters associated with global climate change makes sense to me. The financial impact of trip cancellations, bankruptcies, disabilities, and worl...

Does anyone else live in a strata where property managers draft strata bylaws, minutes, and correspondence, and hire its lawyers? Does your strata have a Strata “Agent” or is that person called the Strata “Manager?” Does their title vary from time to time? Call me slow, but I just realized that although owners and council members have responsibilities under the SPA, there’s a legal process whereby most, if not all, the powers and duties of the strata council can be transferred to a single individual who has absolutely no responsibility under the SPA! This is a 2-step process: first owners adopt a bylaw that allows for the powers and duties of council to be delegated; second, a person who is not an owner is named as the new “Strata Manager.” Once this is voted on with approval and recorded in the minutes, the deed is done. This is what the CRT and courts call “democracy.” I don't think most owners realize that they just allowed an administrator with an inherent conflict of i...

We had carpenter ants pouring into our family room like a river. The nest was in an adjacent railroad tie retaining wall on the north side of our patio. I don't know how the pest control company did it, but they found the nest, and we never saw the ants again. The trick is to find the nest. The building was repaired in our leaky condo project, but the retaining wall has remained damaged for about 20 years despite an engineers report recommending repairs over 5 years ago. ****  

 I didn't know there was a law about this. Although the persecutor's litigation privilege is jealously guarded, the victim's medical confidentiality is usually stripped away ruthlessly. Either you stand naked before the enemy, or you give up on defending your rights. At least that has been my experience. You can't rely on a privacy policy, the SPA, or any kind of decency at all. **** Thank you for sharing your letter to council. It inspired me to write one along the same lines, only mine is 3 pages long, my council already has medical evidence from 4 doctors, the fiasco with my council has been going on for over 20 months, and I don't expect anything from the Human Rights Tribunal before next year... ****

The situation you describe sounds like a dog chasing its tail. It is disrespectful to those who voted at the SGM, and it not an efficient use of precious AGM time to keep going over it. Tampering with minutes is a serious offence. The minutes should be amended to accurately report that the matter was previously decided at the SGM and is now concluded. As far as the notion of council overturning a decision made by the owners, I don't think they could properly do that even if they wanted to. It's standard practice in normal parliamentary procedure that once a vote is taken the matter is conclusively decided. Bringing it up again is out of order, by default. It is exactly the same principle that applies to a party who fails to prevail in litigation. They cannot keep making new claims for the same thing. Section 51 of the SPA provides that if a resolution is passed at a SGM by persons holding less than 50% of the strata's votes, then within one week following the vote, person...

From what you are saying it sounds like speed bumps are being installed in front of your unit. The SPA requires that the decision is recorded in s.35 minutes, some financial record may also be required. If the decision is not recorded in the minutes council is contravening the SPA, but the CRT won't usually order them to obey the law. In any event, council has the power to make decisions concerning common property without explanation and has a lot of discretion in interpreting what they deem to be a "significant" change. It sounds like you expected to be treated with common courtesy, but complaining about being rudely ignored is probably a waste of time. The SPA only requires council to respond to a very narrow range of situations, and that has cultivated an astonishing level of disrespectful arrogance that is spreading throughout BC's strata agency industry. *** The CRT says it's redundant to order stratas to comply with the SPA because that obligation is alr...

I'm all for inviting resumes or some kind of introduction of candidates that includes a summary of what they can contribute. However, I respectfully suggest that you change your strategy. Any plan to recruit a cookie cutter slate and exclude existing council members sounds to me more like a coup than a democratic election process. ⁠ Why not form a nominating committee, and invite ALL owners who care to serve to submit a short cv or introductory bio? That way the voters will have the factual data they need to make informed decisions on who they want to represent them. 

CRT Consultation Time Thanks for sharing this. I will certainly participate, and I really hope that everyone else will also! **** For whatever it's worth, let's not waste ANY opportunity to build the CRT according to public needs. We need the members of this group to participate in this consultation. I took the survey and then made further comment that I would like to be able to save my suggestions. **** I don't know. I participate to suggest corrective action, for whatever it's worth. **** LOVE the image, thanks for sharing it! Will you participate? I'll show you mine, if you show me yours! LOL! **** I know, it takes courage. You have to be careful. Constructive feedback that requires corrective action by the CRT is treated as criticism, and criticism provokes retaliation by adjudicators. What happened to you? Will you please participate in this consultation, just for the record? We really need victims of the CRT to speak out. **** I asked the...

Good question. We might need a magic wand. My suggestion is to give up on portables and install ductless air conditioning that effectively cools the whole place on recycle so you don't have to open the windows and choke on smoke during wildfire season. If you must use portables, window ACs work better than the ones with hoses, and according to Consumers Reports, none of them work as well as advertised. To keep the heat down in our unit we close the windows tight, put corrugated cardboard next to the glass, and close the blinds and drapes while the sun is on the window. Outside we try to shade the glass with a patio umbrella. In summer I get up when it cools off at about 4 a.m. and open all the doors and windows until about 7 a.m., or whenever it gets warmer outside than inside. We also use fans. Lots of fans. Pointed right at us. We don't have a cross draft or shade trees, so on many days nothing we do brings relief. I go around naked wiping myself down with a wet cloth...

Eye roll is right. Just remember that you have to pick your battles. I think that kind of nit picking is usually employed as a distraction to divert attention away from some serious misconduct by the strata management team. I would ignore petty criticism and keep my eye open for that instead.

Notice that in the federal election nobody is suggesting an electronic vote that undermines the democratic right to a secret ballot. It is the strata agency industry that is trying to pass bylaws that allow electronic meetings to replace general meetings. That move to control the mute button, restrict debate, intimidate voters and transfer power into their hands is a state of emergency for stratas in my opinion. I believe that bylaws that allow proxy farming or electronic general meetings as standard practice are contrary to the best interests of owners and strata corporations. FYI, I bcc'd this message to over 90 of my email contacts.   If everyone did the same thing we might better curtain the industry’s campaign for bylaw amendments that would allow EGMs to deprive owners of in-person AGMs.

Thanks for sharing the article "STRATA ALERT: HOW TO GET INTO PEOPLE’S STRATA LOTS WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION" written by Paul Mendes, brother of the current president of BC's Law Society. Unfortunately, it looks to me like a deceptive attempt to churn up litigation by legal professionals who profit from it. The OP's bylaw is probably enforceable. The SPA provides a standard bylaw 7(1) that requires an owner to allow a person authorized by the strata corporation to enter and inspect their strata lot at a reasonable time, on 48 hours' written notice. With all due respect to the Mendes brothers and so many others, lawyers acting in conflicts of interest that are contrary to the best interests of stratas and owners of strata property manufacture countless disputes. I think Adrienne Murray was one of the lawyers drafting the standard bylaw, and the SPA specifically allows for stratas to amend it. Owners do themselves a favour if they rely on the law instead of stories...

Check your bylaws. I think you need a bylaw if you want to force disclosure of the list of proxies. However, s.36 of the SPA entitles you to an unredacted copy of any correspondence, including attachments. This is confirmed multiple times in case law posted on CanLii.   It doesn't matter whether the proxy was delivered via email, hand, or otherwise, a written instruction received by the strata is correspondence, and you are entitled to a copy within 2 weeks of your request upon payment of 25 cents a page. Council is responsible for retaining and providing copies unless your strata passed a bylaw allowing council to delegate their powers and duties to a property manager under s.4 of the SPA. **** None of that makes sense, and none of that is the law. CHOA is "the largest association representing the strata industry in British Columbia" and Daryl was/is a property manager defectively practicing law without a license. The list of proxies is not the property of CHOA or ...

Council can grant permission for short term exclusive use under s.76, unless it requires a 3/4 vote under s.71 for a significant change in use or appearance from as shown on the strata plan. In either case, council can also impose corresponding user fees under s.6.9 of the SPR. I think a user fee rule that is not ratified, or adopted as a bylaw, ceases to have effect at the next AGM, but it can be renewed at the same time that s.76 permission is renewed. Like all decisions, these decisions must be recorded in s.35 minutes. Permission for exclusive use, whether it is a significant change or not, doesn't change the designation shown on the strata plan from common property to limited common property. Nor can it be applied to change s.66 ownershp or proportionate unit entitlements. It is a short term privilege, not an entitlement or ownership. Granting exclusive use of common property without imposing user fees would be a contravention of s.31 if it is unfair or contrary to...