Strata Matters in BC (Recorded Webinar) — Transcript

Webinar on strata living challenges and problem-solving strategies for BC strata owners and councils with expert insights.

Key Takeaways

Strata living requires collective financial planning to maintain property and avoid expensive repairs.
Strata councils must carefully review and understand all contracts to prevent long-term liabilities.
Access to key documents such as insurance policies and warranties is essential for informed decision-making.
Early action on warranty claims can save strata corporations significant costs.
Effective communication and problem-solving strategies can improve strata community living.

Summary

Overview of common challenges in strata living including financial pressures and reserve funding issues.
Importance of proactive planning for building maintenance to avoid costly emergency repairs.
Need for strata councils to thoroughly understand and manage service contracts and agreements.
Recommendation for strata councils to maintain accessible documentation including insurance policies, bylaws, and strata plans.
Emphasis on the critical role of warranty documents for newer strata buildings and timely filing of warranty claims.
Introduction of expert speakers Lisa Mackey, a strata lawyer, and Tony Gioventu, executive director of CHOA.
Clarification that the webinar provides legal information, not personalized legal advice.
Acknowledgement of Indigenous territories and funding sources supporting the webinar.
Strategies to improve communication and early problem resolution in strata communities.
Encouragement for strata owners and councils to seek legal advice for specific circumstances.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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Welcome everybody to today's webinar, Strata Matters in BC: Problem-Solving Strategies for Strata Owners and Councils. My name is Paula Price. I'm with the People's Law School, and I will be your host and moderator for today's webinar. We have two incredible speakers,

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Lisa Mackey and Tony Gioventu. I will introduce them in just a minute. So you know that you're in the right place if you have questions about strata matters in BC. Our panelists are going to answer common questions about problem

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solving strategies for strata owners and councils, including common challenges related to strata living, mechanisms in place to help strata owners and councils avoid and resolve problems, practical strategies for strata owners and councils to communicate better and resolve problems earlier regardless of where

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they're starting from. What you can expect today: we've got 60 minutes together, and you'll hear your answers to common questions. We are providing legal information, not advice, current as of today. Now, if what you're seeking is the law as it applies to your

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unique set of circumstances, that would be legal advice. We would encourage you to reach out to a lawyer. You're welcome to reach out to either of our speakers. Their contact information is on the screen. We, the People's Law School team,

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are grateful to work on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. Everyone who is joining us, to reflect upon where it is that you are joining us from today. We would also like to thank our funders, the Department of Justice Canada,

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the Law Foundation of British Columbia, and finally the Notary Foundation, whose financial support makes it possible for us to produce these webinars. And finally, last but not least, we would love to introduce our guest speakers today. So we have Lisa Mack. Lisa

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is a lawyer at Alexander Holburn in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the leader of both the strata property and residential tenancy law practice groups at her firm. Lisa is a returning speaker to the

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People's Law School webinars, having been here on four prior occasions. She has spoken on topics of renting and evictions as well as strata matters. So Lisa, we are thrilled to have you back. Welcome to today's webinar.

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Thank you for hosting again. Amazing. And one thing I wanted to mention too is that Lisa's website is incredible. You've got such a wonderful array of resources, and the number of speaking engagements and blog articles and contributions that you've

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made are really incredible. So thanks very much. It's a pleasure.

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Thank you. And of course, we have Tony Gioventu. Tony is the executive director of the Condominium Homeowners Association of BC, also known as CHOA, and he is also a returning speaker to

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the People's Law School. This is his third webinar with us. Tony is a very well-known expert and sought-after speaker, and he produces a weekly column. It's very popular. It's called Condo Smarts for the Province and the Times

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Colonist. Tony shared that he's at 1,124 articles, and those have been produced over the past 23 years. I believe that they are all searchable on the CHOA website. So Tony, you bring such a wealth of information with you,

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and we're delighted to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining us.

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Thank you for having me back. It's a pleasure. It is a pleasure. Thank you. So the first question is for Tony, and Tony, what we'd love to know is what are the top two or three challenges that you see when it comes to strata living?

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Well, I think one of the principles of strata living for everyone is that your home is not your castle, which means collectively we share it. We

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share the good things, we share the bad things, most important, we share the costs and the funding. And the difficulty we have in our industry is that we have low levels of reserve funding, and that compounded with housing affordability in

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rates really puts quite the financial pressure on homeowners to increase their contributions to their reserves. This kind of creates a bit of a vicious cycle because the problem that evolves out of it is we tend to have a lack of

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proactive planning for replacement of building components before they fail. Once a building component fails and we start to deal with damages or emergency response or even worse shutdowns because we have fire safety systems that are not

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operational or an elevator that's not accessible, the difficulty we have is accessibility problems for owners and the ability to inhabit

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their spaces. This compounds into significantly greater costs. So the difficulty we have is what should have cost one fixed number is really costing three to five

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times more because so much deferment has occurred. And I think that's one of the real challenges for every strata community: to find that healthy balance, what's affordable, what can we plan for, and balance it with how can we

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prevent losses as a result of neglect. I think that's the first issue that I think is a real issue for strata corporations. The second issue is a real lack of understanding of strata corporations, how they operate, by strata

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councils. And that goes to the very heart of documentation. My wish for every strata corporation is either to have a website or have an operations manual for all of your council members that contains every service contract and every agreement and

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clearly understand what the implications of those agreements are. Don't blindly sign renewal agreements. Don't sign evergreen contracts that recycle every five years with bizarre cancellations to them.

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You know, take your time, look at your contracts, and by all means consider what the implications of these contracts and services are. It's not, for example, it's not $2,200 a year for waste management. If it's a 10-year contract, it's probably $222,000 over 10 years.

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Clearly, you need to have some legal advice on this. There are some very quirky terms and conditions around renewal cycles, possible assignments, terminations, durations of the contract, performance. So take the time to look at each one of your service agreements, and this will include everything from elevator,

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strata management contracts, fire safety systems, fiber optics if you're doing upgrades to your buildings, any type of service agreement or contract you have. Make sure every council member has it in their hands and they understand the implications. The third thing that I

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think strata corporations—and I break this into two separate groups: stratas that are under 10 years versus strata corporations that are over 10 years—every council member should have a copy of your insurance policy, your bylaws, and the registered strata plan or at least

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have access to it. You're constantly called on to make decisions about alterations to common property or a bylaw matter that relates to an alteration to a strata lot, or you have a special project that's coming up and

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that project is going to be involving some construction management or other details. Without the documents, you can't make prudent decisions. If you're under 10 years, it's absolutely critical that the strata council members have copies of the warranty documents, understand the

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cycles of the warranties: the 18-month to two-year portion, which covers almost all components; the five-year portion that covers building envelope; and then, of course, finally, the structure of the warranty that covers the building for 10 years. It's essential to know when

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those expiration dates happen, what triggers a notice of a warranty claim, how you do it, and clearly understand that mechanism. It's surprising how many strata corporations are not filing warranty claims for reasonable claims associated with their buildings.

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It's not an indictment of the construction industry. We have an exceptionally sound and robust construction industry in BC. But you just look at a building system like a high-rise; there are literally hundreds of thousands of parts in these buildings. Not everything performs 100%, so your warranties are incredibly...

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um lots of categories and if we were doing the Academy Awards for legislation that governs strata communities it would be the strata property act as best picture so hands down so there's a lot of of laws that do impact Community

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Living um when you're living in a strata we have the Human Rights Code we have um the personal information protection act we have other legislation as well but the one to know love and read uh every day is the strata property act and so it

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really outlines in a very comprehensive way what it's like to live in a strata so it governs um how we can have meetings it governs how we can spend money it uh lets us know what our repair and maintenance obligations are like um

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there are provisions of the act that governs disputes and what that looks like in a strata community so it's really a key law that anyone living in a strata Community whether or not you wear a council member hat or not should

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become familiar with um and how going to be used for a tool well it's it's a One-Stop shop for um uh your answers to various questions that we're going to Canvas today so um what is a council's obligation with respect to recordkeeping

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or disclosure of Records to to folks that want copies of repair and maintenance reports or inspection reports or depreciation reports um what what can a strata council do to raise money how often can they have meetings during the year how can owners be more

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of uh a direct um uh have direct involvement in the communities as well the strata property act provides all of the tools whether or not you're a council member an owner or a tenant um in the community um it's really the

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place to look and so uh it's also a great um sleeping tool if you have problem sleeping at night feel free to crack open the strata property act you will fall asleep very quickly um that's not to say that the information isn't

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relevant it certainly is beautiful thank you so much Lisa and I appreciate your reference to the to the AOS um excellent Tony this next question is for you what best practices can strata owners uh follow when they want

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to raise issues with their Strat councils what doesn't work oh what doesn't work is a long list um the best practice list is pretty short um I think speculation and gossip in strata corporations is probably the most harmful for communities um and it's

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usually based on a very thin Foundation of fact it's often times um somebody didn't get their way about something so they start um basically turning the waters and and turmoil was created but I think a um a good level of communication

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with your Strat Council um is important if you're an owner and the ACT gives a very nice provision for an owner to request a hearing of counsel um and I think we've kind of gotten into at least I don't know about you but I've seen

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that we've kind of gotten into the behab The Habit that hearings are actually confrontational not they're not productive um but if I was to do a an a request for an installation of a heat pump for example Le I would make it

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proactive I would want a hearing with my counsel so it gets minuted I have there's an obligation to respond look at the bylaws I would prepare all the documents and information and then through a hearing of council I would get

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into a dialogue I would like to do this how can I do it in a way that's going to make it easier for the strata Council and the property manager what documents and records do you need do I need to

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talk to my neighbors maybe this isn't an issue to that extent but um I think communication and dialogue between unit owners and strata councils is really the first step towards Healthy Communities um the hearing mechanism doesn't have to

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be confrontational and many strata corporations use it um as a really a positive time period to ensure they're continuing to improve their communities another issue that often comes up is accessibility so accessibility is a real concern especially with older buildings

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um and it's a human rights obligation you know you must provide accessible buildings rather than wait till your strata of Corporation kind of melts down into a human rights complaint and you now have an insurance claim or lawyer

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fees and there's all these expenses start with a dialogue with your strata counsil there are some great resources available through the BC housing website on accessibility through the choah website start doing a review and an analysis process um and see what you as

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a strata Corporation can proactively do it can save yourselves quite a lot of trouble what doesn't work are probably as I started out misinformation within communities talking around behind the Strat Council or Shadow Strat councils they don't work either they create more

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trouble than solution ever um in the solutions that you're looking for so um you know elect also a Full Slate of Strat council members that's another challenge we have many Strat corporations where it's just struggling to get three people people to be on

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Council fill it with seven people have routine meetings get people to attend on a routine basis get everybody engaged makes a huge difference excellent thank you Tony I I think a couple of takeaways there are really really helpful that

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suggestion of approaching from a non-adversarial perspective right go in with uh that that sort of collaborative approach and the resources that you mentioned we will include a link to those resources along with the notes that go with recording of this episode

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um next question is also for you Tony if a strata Council doesn't comply with the strata property act what channels other than a formal complaint are available to owners what if the strata Council doesn't respond well usually the first

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step if you have a non-engaged strata Council who are confrontational refusing to respond to owners refusing to provide information or updates usually the first step is I would suggest get a petition to replace your Str Council um that

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might be absolutely necessary they may and they may be people who are simply overwhelmed they you know or it potentially could be that you have a strat Council who are just simply interested in their own agenda and they

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are not engaging owners or responding to owners it you know the question has to really be fine-tuned what if the council doesn't respond to a reasonable question right if I was the strata counsil well I am um on my own building but as a strat

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Council if there's an unreasonable question or unreasonable harassment we're not responding um it's not it's not going to be engaged we encourage the person to Define and identify what the real issue is um set up um an opportunity to discuss this with the

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strata Council um but you have to qualify what the response is whether it's reasonable or not so we also have a really difficult problem with individuals who really set out to harass their Strat councils and and that's problematic the Strat councils and the

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property managers they they just burn right out and nobody wants to do it anymore so you know I think it takes a measured approach sometimes Strat councils need to deflect this into a legal realm so that a lawyer is

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responding to accusations or harassment or those types of issues it's unfortunate because they're dollars that should be spent on their buildings but it's sometimes absolutely necessary um if all else fails if you you know one option is replace your strata counsil

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it's petition another option is um which many people use go to the Civil resolution tribunal um if there is an issue of compliance with strata of property act and their bylaws lump those both together there's a an obligation

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for the strata to comply with both if there is a real issue with those the Civil resolution tribunal is probably their most reasonable cycle of what takes place it's interest interesting a common complaint we hear is that tribunal always takes a side of the

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strata Corporation but we hear that complaint from people who don't get what they want not necessarily people who are right or wrong right and so um but when you look closely it's not true it's fairly balanced and you have to look

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closely at what the what was being asked for versus what the evidence provided um versus the decision and I think it acts really quite reasonably and that may be the only other channel if there's a human rights matter that's involved

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definitely take it to the right Authority file a complaint with the human rights tribunal um that's the other side of disputes that occur um where the strata isn't necessarily responding oftentimes they just don't know how to respond excellent thank you so much Tony

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that leads really nicely to our next question which is for you Lisa at what point should an owner make a formal complaint and what is the process yeah great question and so just to Dev tail back on what Tony was mentioning about

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the tools available for Council hearings that's really the first step so if you feel like you're an owner you're a tenant and you're not being heard um by your Council your concerns are not being responded to or the responses are not

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satisfactory to you the first step is really to request an audience before councel um it's under 34.1 of the strata of property act and and it's a tool that owners can use before they actually escalate complaints or concerns to

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another body like the Civil resolution tribunal um or another entity perhaps even the Supreme Court depending on the nature of the concern um a hearing is a great opportunity to be heard I mean spoiler alert it's called a hearing

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because it's really an opportunity for the council to listen to your questions or your concerns um as a resident and sometimes I find that even taking that step helps Council better understand what the concerns are um sometimes people don't communic at the best in

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writing sometimes their written Communications might be received uh more like a complaint rather than a concern or a personal attack on Council uh and keep in mind everybody that when you're a strata council member you're still an owner uh in the community and it's a

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volunteer position and it's a lot of work and it's uh can be a thankless job people aren't usually knocking on the council president's door to relay positive feedback so it can be a very very challenging seat to sit in and so

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what better way than to actually sit with the council and and try to explore your concerns um that hearing mechanism allows you to request a decision of council very quickly um uh within one week of holding your hearing and so then

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you'll have an idea as to whether or not you have to escalate your complaint in a formal way and as Tony mentioned most disputes um with respect to strata of Corporations or governance matters can be tackled by the Civil resolution

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tribunal and the CRT for short would like to see owners pref filing a complaint with them exercise this 34.1 hearing request um a legal proceeding is a last resort it's not your first step so make sure that you've exhausted all

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avenues to resolve um your concerns um and the process really depends on um uh where you end up escalating your disput so the Civil resolution tribunal is a very informal process it's all online everybody so very different um way of

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litigating um some matters need to go to Supreme Court it's way more formal we have um judges that preside over strata disputes um we might have the opportunity to appear before the human rights tribunal or have matters before

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the office of the information and privacy commissioner it really depends the process will depend if you have any questions about your con uh your matter or what tools are available if you're not totally clear um we'll get into some

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resources later on in the session that you can reach out to for clarification um but try and exhaust all avenues of communication first everybody um escalating things to a formal complaint should really be um a last step to

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trying resolving disputes excellent thank you so much Lisa you're welcome Lisa this next question is also for you what role do owners play in helping councils do their job what legal rights to owners have to direct and make

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decisions yeah so um council members have a really big job uh they they have their day jobs um and then they have um their responsibilities to manage the strata Corporation to the benefit of the strata Corporation and the owners um and

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so how can you assist your Council um be respectful um be um uh communicative but don't inundate councel um every other day with a concern try and regulate how much communication um or feedback you give to your councils um and uh and try

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and keep your uh your Communications um to a uh respectful uh tone you should never have to question if a judge reades reads what I write in an email will I get in trouble will this will this not

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look good for me so make sure that you proof fre to everybody what you're you're sending your counsels um and be part of your community I I've seen a lot of owners withdraw from their communities where they don't read

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minutes they don't um attend General meetings these are really your opportunities to help the council and to support the council in initiatives um Tony mentioned at the front end of the session for example for budgeting and uh repair and maintenance projects um

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educating yourself as an owner helps council do their job and helps get them get the required thresholds to get projects done uh and to plan for the future um and the strata of property act does uh afford owners an opportunity to

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take a more direct role with Council so um uh as Tony mentioned as well owners have the ability to petition um a council to do something they can petition uh calling a general meeting of the ownership if if the council's not

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willing to call a general meeting on a particular topic it just requires 20% um of the strata corporations votes to to initiate that petition you can petition an agenda item or a resolution same threshold um so there's opportunities to

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get this discussion broadened to your entire Community rather than confined to the Council um no there are limits there's hard limits like there is with anything um and so section 27 of the strata property act does remind owners

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that we can't control the council with respect to some things so we're not allowed to interfere with their discretion um to determine whether or not somebody's contravened a bylaw or a rule and we can't tell Council how much

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should be fined if any so we really need to support the councils in those decisions um but there is opportunity under act to get direct participation with Council um and to motivate councils to put things on agendas um if if you

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feel like it's being ignored excellent thank you so much Lisa and I gather then that the process that you just described you would find that under the stra of property act for owners who are interested in kind of reviewing or

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getting more familiar with their their rights absolutely so the the uh the hearing request is under 34.1 of the ACT but there's a whole section under the strata of property act with respect to dispute resolution um how I can request

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records from my Strada um with respect to meetings how can I petition a general meeting or an agenda item all of that is under the ACT you guys so everything we're talking about today um is uh a resource that you can find within the

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legislation itself excellent thank you so much Lisa um Tony this next question is for you how can strata Council spot issues before they escalate and what red flags should they watch for well um how do you spot issues you know the

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challenge is to avoid the landmines before they blow up in your face so a very prudent measure with respect to finances for example don't let your receivables get into the 10 or 20% factor of your financial operations um

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you know if you have individuals that are delinquent put them on demand notice so that the strata is in a position to file leans if it comes to that within a month um but it's surprising the number of strata corporations who receivables

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exceed $100,000 and they're not doing anything about it we have limitation periods that could affect their ability to collect there could be a sale or a transfer um there are could be an estate that gets involved um if Strat councils

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are proactive about their finances and make regular decisions on collection get them in the minutes um it will make quite a significant difference because it also lets your owners know we're being vigilant about collections we're being vigilant about finances if you

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become relaxed um people start to Slough off especially when you're dealing with major special levies um you know the levy is due on April 1st April 2nd um you're going to do a review of who has paid by April 5th demand notices will go

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out a demand notice 20 days later does do anything other than if someone hasn't paid and the stratic corporation has to take action they can file leans to secure the stratic corporation's debt so that's one issue another issue monitor

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building problems that occur um and the frequency of which they're occurring you know we had a pipe that broke in a hallway um it was a oneoff over five years not likely a critical problem may have just been a defect in a pipe excuse

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me but if we've had pipe breaks that are occurring every month or every few months throughout the complex it's a pretty good indication that the hot and de cold domestic water has to be replaced and so look for uh symptoms I

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think that's really the way to look at it is look for symptoms within your building systems that may indicate their chronic problems one elevator is breaking down every month it's time for an overhaul there may be other issues

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major issues associated with it um and you know building issues it's a it's quite surprising but if buildings run smoothly there's good security there are not major problems and there aren't huge financial demands the community itself will also be fairly harmonious and you

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won't have a lot of conflict in your community uh most conflicts arise out of money or the lack of money available to do things which just simply results in special levies that cause a lot of hardship for quite a few people you know

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um special levies they're simply deferred strata fees that's all they are because strata corporations have no reserves to be able to deal with the issues um you know financial planning makes a very big difference to communities um there and there are there

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are good examples of communities with Good Financial Planning um they routin routinely do their upgrades they routinely do their repairs and renewals they rarely have disputes um there're these are the kind of buildings that people stand in line waiting for a

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listing so they can move in into these buildings um you know managing your financial affairs and your what is necessary for your obligations for your buildings will solve many many problems in your communities amazing thank you so much Tony and this next question is also

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for you and it ties back to a theme that you've now mentioned a couple of times in the responses which is how can a Strate Council find the right balance between saving money and investing in proactive maintenance well you know um planning cycled

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planning and servicing and renewals um a good example is Roofing storic corporations often wait until there's a complaint about a leak before they are having roofs inspected roofs should be inspected at least annually if not semiannually if not annually um climate

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conditions change we have severe storms um we have animals um even the squirrels love to get up get up on roofs and rip to miles off um you know we have all these impacts um on our roofing systems

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an annual inspection will probably guarantee that your roof performs better it has a much longer life cycle and you can be aware of when you're going to have to start planning for replacement it usually gives you about a three-year

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Advance jump on when we're going to have to replace the roof so another another tactic that I use look at your depreciation report by the way your depreciation reports are now mandatory for all strata corporations in the province of five units or more as of

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July 1st 26 so get your depreciation report done look at the next five or 10 years what are the major components that are going to be coming scheduled at least for review and for planning for Renewal then look at the values that

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those are take that into a summary of maybe five or 10 items put that in your annual um notice that goes up with your general meeting every year um no one likes prizes and so if the Strat even if

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the Strat is not planning for the special Levy individuals can say look it looks like I'm going to be due for about a $110,000 levy or a $20,000 Levy in three years individuals can start to do their own savings if the Strat is not

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actually proactively saving um the other side of it it just comes down to money right how do we fund this try to increase your strata of fees marginally each year enough to continue to contribute to reserve funds you might

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not be able to avoid special levies but you can certainly reduce the impact on special levies um and if you're if you're doing we're talking about saving money and investing in proactive maintenance but how about saving money and investing our funds into the

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permitted Investments doesn't seem like much but over a period of five or 10 years those Investments can generate a substantial amount of funds to help offset special levies so you know so it's a it's really holistic management both of the Building Systems their

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reviews their maintenance as well as managing your financial resources excellent thank you so much Tony I wish that somebody um was was managing our house because our our roof needs to be repl and we did not we did not learn the

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the proactive way um thank you H Lisa the next question is for you it's how can strata councils communicate effectively with owners yeah um the strata property has one Surefire way of communication and that's through minutes so um council meeting minutes to help

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educate owners as to what's going on in the community um that's just one way um it's uh one that we require under the Strat of property act when we hold a meeting whether it's a general meeting or a council meeting we do have to

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minute that meeting we have to record the decisions the results of any votes um at that meeting um but there's other ways that we can communicate with owners as well so if we have for example an elevator prepare um put an advanced

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notice by the elevator to let people know that the elevator is going to be down um for a few days um take it upon yourself to call information meetings now that's going to be a new term um for

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some of us uh who are watching today um information meetings are not formal meetings of the community but they are uh meetings that uh Council can request owners attendance at to discuss things that are coming down the road in terms

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of what might be voted on at a future general meeting so um it's an ability for Council to just host an informal meeting you can convene it in a very similar way that you do a general meeting or a council meeting um and you

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invite owners to talk about a topic that has been on council's mind and that might assist with uh a future upcoming vote so I usually like when before I'm dealing with for example a significant repair project um that might actually

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Blindside owners if we've just learned that there is is a a for example a building envelope deficiency that will require a lot of funds to tackle what I might do early on is host an information meeting apart from letting owners know

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what's going on in a council meeting minutes I might invite my building envelope engineer to the meeting so that they can answer questions and we might forecast where does our community need to go with respect to this repair how we

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can Finance the repair it's amazing how great um information meetings can be for Council in planning those resolutions and votes later because you can if you're on the fence as to whether or not the community might want to for example

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finance a repair from the contingency reserve fund versus uh Finance the repair uh by way of a special Levy um you can canvas the room and do a stroll poll as to where people are at and then that way when you land at the meeting

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you land with some degree of certainty now you can't predict everything um but you you get a little bit more confident in what you're proposing and and it helps to lessen any acrimony or question s that owners might have if they're

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simply blindsided by notice of a general meeting and and a big price tag attached to that um so those are the the key aspects as well and then for owners or for councils to be responsive now um Council can receive a lot of uh email

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traffic uh during the day um sometimes people just want their emails to be acknowledged so just uh we got your email we will get back to you as soon as possible it's amazing how um benefit official those acknowledgement

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Communications are they they say nothing but they mean everything and they help to diffuse um owner concerns and feel heard so lots of different ways to communicate effectively under the ACT excellent thank you so much Lisa you're welcome um Lisa this next question is

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also for you um what about situations where councilors are dealing with uh owners who may be demanding or overly communicative right and I love the graphic that you have on there Paula so that is that is a very communicative

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owner right now um so and and that actually leads into a couple of issues on this one so um what are the nature of the communications so are they actually um renewed Communications on something that is serious that the council should

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pay attention to or are they um uh vexatious Communications where they're disparaging of council or disparaging of other owners are they harassing Communications depending on the nature of the communication I would recommend a different response strategy so um for

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all for all owners or tenants that have a um uh a tendency to email every other day or multiple times a day my first uh recommendation to owners is to sit back and really measure your Communications what is important to convey to council

Speaker A

and how can I be heard uh without Council plugging their ears and shutting down because I'm inundating them with Communications so that's on the owner side on the council side um letting the owner know that you've received their

Speaker A

communication and that you will get back to them offering them a realistic timeline so sometimes the ACT requires us to respond in a certain period of time so we should double check whether or not we're under a particular deadline

Speaker A

um but letting them know that we will get back and we will and that's a way to manage Communications um the other side of the coin is if the communication is disrespectful if it's derogatory if it's harassing the strata Corporation can

Speaker A

adopt bylaws that help to uh call out bad behavior and what is or is not considered to be uh a form of harassment in the community so what might be uh demanding an overly communicative owner might be an owner that is um now facing

Speaker A

bylaw enforcement um uh proceedings because of the manner with which they've communicated with Council or other owners so there's some tools there for um for Council too um sometimes switching the method of communication is good too so if somebody is inundating

Speaker A

council with various emails why not Council initiate sort of a reverse 34.1 hearing and invite the owner to appear at a council meeting if they feel that having an in-person discussion might actually change the nature of the communications um often when I'm having

Speaker A

a problem communicating with someone I try and flip the script in terms of how we're communicating if email isn't working pick up the phone if the phone isn't working try an email if is there's a lot of different ways that we can

Speaker A

communicate with one another um I think for Council to maintain their cool is also important sometimes that we have an overly or what we perceive to be an overly communicative owner but they are raising an issue that is worthy of a

Speaker A

response so um it's very very easy for councils to shut down because it is a tough tough job on top of what they're doing on the day-to-day but really really important um for councils to be as responsive and respectful as possible

Speaker A

to owners excellent thank you some really practical strategies I like you're flipping the the script suggestion as as well with when mode of communication isn't working there are other methods as well um Tony this next question is for you I heard about a

Speaker A

strata where an $8,000 deck repair escalated to a $500,000 problem at what points along the way can problems like this be resolved before they escalate so this is just a classic example of deferment um you know failing to maintain and repair common property

Speaker A

and year after year it just gets plowed over to the next TR Council the next group of owners it compounds into bigger problems and I think it's a textbook case where deferring maintenance to buildings especially building exteriors results in so much compounded damage

Speaker A

that it's no longer a deck prair it's now a matter of a rotten deck surface a water penetration into the walls of the building um and then you're looking at a build a complete building envelope problem which um will evolve to that

Speaker A

Point um eventually um this is quite common I I would like to say it's not but it's fairly common in our industry so it's um it's a difficult problem that we continue to educate to try and get people to avoid neglecting their

Speaker A

buildings the cost is just it's just money being wasted eventually and then everyone of course is in major confrontation over the cost that's associated but it's the same people who voted against the resolutions to get the buildings fixed after all these years

Speaker A

eventually you may not get to eventually you're going to probably get into a situation where there'll be a court order for the repairs or there will be an administrator appointed um and the Strat Corporation will be in a position

Speaker A

of no choice the levies will be ordered the repairs will be done um and whatever the cost may be that's what it's eventually going to to be the result um again routine inspections are absolutely necessary for buildings um building

Speaker A

exteriors especially um but routine servicing and inspection of building Interiors as well um sanitary drains need to be flushed regularly ventilation systems need to be cleaned regularly um testing of Water Systems has to be routine Fire Safety Systems have to be

Speaker A

routinely tested and upgraded when you defer any of these items you just are going to Simply compound the cost that's associated iated with it so it kind of goes back to the very first principle that I talked about if a strat council

Speaker A

is equipped with all of the documents understanding all of the service agreements and all the components they they have to repair um it makes a substantial difference um and and it's awareness with communication with owners Lisa talked about this but

Speaker A

in your annual notice put in an annual report summarize here are all of these service agreements we have here are all the repairs and maintenance that we under that we undertook this year here are the upcoming major renewals that we

Speaker A

have to schedule for and for the values associated with it um I think bigger a bigger part of the problem is lack of awareness of the owners um you know in this I know this example and it's unfortunately it's worse than this it

Speaker A

did start at $8,000 but it ended up being 3/4 of a million in repairs um and the difficulty with this is if you look through the records of the minutes of the annual meetings and Council meetings there are two or three year stretches

Speaker A

where there's absolutely nothing about this debt failure that's recorded in those minutes which either meant they were just just chose to ignore the problem or it simply fell off the radar screen and the new councils who were elected were not really paying attention

Speaker A

or unaware of it so you know again in annual reports try to contain information that's going to be a legacy helpful for the next strata Council to understand where are roles and obligations and liabilities are going to be there is no way to prevent Strat

Speaker A

corporations from doing this but the consequences are very expensive thank you so much Tony um very very sobering right this uh and and really highlights the importance of the preventative uh approach um Lisa this last question is for you and then we're

Speaker A

going to turn to questions from our guests what resources are available to strata owners and strata counsil members okay so um as a strat Council um one of the uh refrains that I usually say um is from the BC Lottery

Speaker A

Corporation which is know your limit play Within it and so as councils um we might not have a legal background we might not be an engineer we might not be a plumber um and when certain questions crop up where we do not have the

Speaker A

requisite background to know the answer right away or know what our obligations are the resources are there in terms of relying on other professionals retaining those Engineers retaining those plumbers um getting a depreciation report calling a lawyer so don't feel that you're on

Speaker A

your own in a boat out in the ocean um there are a lot of professionals that help councils do their job um and can help um apart from that there's education and here is a a prime example and so thank you to anybody who's on

Speaker A

their Council who's attending today I think this is a wonderful um time commitment that youve made and it'll certainly serve your communities um but Tony for example the the condominium homeowners association will routinely offer seminars and education for owners

Speaker A

and council members so learning in a different way as well apart from reading that act which we know will put us to sleep uh right away um those are resources that are available to help inform ourselves um and uh and and do

Speaker A

our job as a councils from the owner perspective same resources really so um the the owners have the strata of property Act um you have professionals that you can ask advice uh about there's nothing uh harming an owner from going

Speaker A

and getting legal advice so is my concern that I've presented to council legitimate what can I do what are my what are my options um and then uh again educating yourself as well there's lots of resources out there the government

Speaker A

resources civil resolution tribunal has a a great comprehensive website as well um we live in a time where it's really really uh easy to get information we want to make sure we get the right information um but it's really easy it's usually at

Speaker A

our fingertips so lots of resources available uh to everybody and and you've all done the the first step which is um which is actually attending um today's session yeah exactly and thank you everyone for attending and for these

Speaker A

questions they really are excellent and so turning to one of the questions here um Tony I believe it was you you mentioned this idea of increasing the strateg fees so with the increase in cost the cost of living and great

Speaker A

uncertainty in the future many people can't afford large increases in strateg fees with that being said what is a minimal percentage increase that can be deemed reasonable and what are some good areas that can generally be cut back on

Speaker A

to save money thank you uh it's a great question and I think every Community struggles with this I don't think there's one blank answer um at the very least try to match the cost of living increase you know Strat

Speaker A

corporations might go three to five years without any increases whatsoever the minimum contribution to the contingency fund is now 10% of your annual operating budget no no dispute nothing less than that um that is helping but it's Far Cry from what we

Speaker A

really need but look at other measures or other cost-saving measures for example um uh LED conversions in buildings if you're in a building of any size whether it's a lowrise of 95 units or a mid-rise or a highrise if you do

Speaker A

LED conversion of all of your common area lighting from your parking garage to your hallways um you will find that there is actually a substantial savings economically within that that savings can go into your contingency fund without actually having to increase your

Speaker A

Strat fees look at areas where you may actually have some real cost benefits review your service agreements um some service some service agreements may be um over providing over servicing others might actually be underprovided or under servicing so you know do a routine

Speaker A

evaluation of your contracts and services um and assess if they're appropriate uh we've seen Strat corporations a number of years ago that instituted bylaws that required the annual contribution of the contingency fund was 15% of the annual budget today

Speaker A

those communities that are now facing re-roofing and other items have a substantial amount of money in their Reserve funds and they don't have special levies the the real benefit of your reserve funds and not having special levies when you come to a

Speaker A

planned renewal item and your depreciation report the roof is due in 2026 we have enough money in our Reserve fund it's only a majority vote special levies are a three4 vote and almost everyone who votes against special levies it's just purely because they

Speaker A

can't afford it not because they don't want the work to be done so you know the long-term effect of planning um your resources the long-term effect of having enough money in your reserve funds has a lot of other benefits be besides

Speaker A

avoiding special levies we have lower voting thresholds we get things done and repaired before they fail it it we can manage the contract um you know emergencies are a huge problem when you have a level of urgency and you're now

Speaker A

in an emergency response situation you're now dealing with um significant cost elevations so these are the things we try to avoid if we can avoid that that helps to reduce our financial impact uh I think another issue that

Speaker A

comes comes up with buildings that are not well-maintained there are more frequent insurance claims the result of those claims are deductibles increase substantially policies increase and so all of these put a drain on the resources that the owners have and you

Speaker A

know you need to look closely at where where the greatest impact is happening within your budgets there are going to be circumstances that occur for us that you have no control over one year we have no snow the next year we have so

Speaker A

much snow it's a $35,000 removal bill you know there there are going to be anomalies and times with these things when these things happen but when you're doing budget planning it's not about what did we spend or what did we budget

Speaker A

last year let's add 2% and do this year it's about looking at your budget and all of your service agreements and your mainess closely and defining what do we really need excellent thank you so much Lisa did you want to add anything or no

Speaker A

I think that was a perfect answer no amendments thank you thank you here's another question that received a number of uploads how do you deal with an owner holding a lot of proxies that control the decision of any

Speaker A

resolutions you want to start Lisa so so the industry lingo is really it's called proxy farming and so um like it's a crop um there's no limit how many proxies somebody can hold everybody so um I've seen a lot of tension in

Speaker A

communities where they get uh very upset that an owner has come in with a ton of proxy and so they're really controlling the votes that happen in the community um from my perspective uh someone gives a proxy to someone else for a couple of

Speaker A

different reasons one they legitimately can't attend the meeting and they can't um vote at the meeting two they are uh disinterested um they they don't know what's going on in the community and and they're easily swayed to turn over their

Speaker A

voting um uh ability to another owner who uh encourages them to pass along their right to vote um and so for the lad Camp of people it's about getting that engagement again with the community and getting ownership and improving

Speaker A

Communications getting people motivated to attend and participate in general meetings um proxies can be uh delivered in a manner where they direct the the the proxy holder to vote in a certain way or they defer to the proxy holder as

Speaker A

well and so um if you're finding that a lot of proxies are coming through that just defer to the proxy holder and they don't really take a stance in what's going on um that might be a symptom that

Speaker A

oh gosh we need to communicate better with our community to motivate people to get involved and and have their say um Tony you and I have certainly discussed instances where um there's been pressure on certain vulnerable members of the

Speaker A

community to give up their right to vote by way of proxy and that's that's a bit of a different situation yeah I think the other side of it is that electronic meetings are actually better because they reduce proxy farming um there are no secret

Speaker A

ballots for electronic meetings uh and so as a result the person who's chairing the meeting identifies is in aware and is aware of how each person is voting and you can actually use the bylaws to your advantage in this situation where

Speaker A

you can call the role so if somebody is holding 15 proxies you can call the role and ask them how each person has voted and it can be formed part of the record so if somebody's given an instruction

Speaker A

and that person had no intention to f in it it suddenly becomes apparent to everyone what the outcome of that was um we see more people who attend um electronic meetings than in-person meetings and I think the reason for that

Speaker A

is they feel more comfortable if they're adversarial meetings they feel safer um and we can record meetings um quite easily when they're electronic meetings which also really helps to reduce the impact of people who are trying to control the outcome with large numbers

Speaker A

of proxies excellent thank you so much um here's another question how can you prevent the same people on Council wow I'll start this one I would tend to say let's be thankful that the same people are on Council because

Speaker A

they've at least stepped up to keep doing the job um it depends on what that what that's about right uh and and sometimes a bylaw modification can help that so you know the election of a stratic council is a majority vote um

Speaker A

and it's unless the bylaws have been amended so maybe you want to amend your bylaws so that it's the seven people nominated with the greatest number of votes the danger of that is you may end up with an incredibly complicated or

Speaker A

hostile person on strata Council and the strata Council becomes quite dysfunctional so you have to be careful of what the impact of that is um but people who attend stay involved participate support your Council you will get invited to participate in your

Speaker A

Strat Council it you can't stop people from continuing to run and let's face it most people are quite happy when it comes to the election of council they all look at the floor and don't make eye contact they don't want to be they don't

Speaker A

want to be tapped on theer for Council no I agree with Tony I also think that the um uh the best way to inspire change on Council is to to try and be that change so run for counsel

Speaker A

yourself if you have a concern with how your community has been operating and you want some new faces um volunteer um put your put yourself out there I I tend to agree with Tony that that there's a lot of um uh trepidation joining your

Speaker A

strata Council because it's such a big job um and it's such a thankless job um same with property managers we we have a an industry issue with uh not having enough strata property managers um around um and a big attrition rate

Speaker A

because it is really really tough everyone it's everyone is very um in a strata Community very motivated to protect their investment it can get highly emotional um and uh and then you have a day job apart from your Council

Speaker A

job so it it's a it's a tough job but if if you do feel like you need a change of pace on councel throw your hat in the ring give it a go beautiful thank you so much and we have like one minute left

Speaker A

I'm going to ask one last question and then we will wrap up and just a big thank you to everyone for submitting your questions they're they're excellent um there are a couple here that have both received a relatively High number

Speaker A

of up votes about evicting tenants so one of those questions is this how can a strata evict a tenant for continuous violations of their smoking by law yeah wonderful question and also um that touches on a bylaw or a a legislative

Speaker A

amendment that happened over the last couple of years so stratas there used to be a bit of a question mark as to how the process for evicting a tenant when the property owner doesn't do their job and and manage their disruptive tenants

Speaker A

accordingly um a couple of years ago the uh residential tency branch passed policy guidelines that enable uh strata Corporation to knock on their door issue their own eviction notice one month notice um and uh start the eviction process when an owner doesn't so there

Speaker A

are resources for St communities when there's a repeated uh violation of a significant bylaw or rule to remove individuals um who are there under a tency agreement so um uh definitely uh easier to do that now than it was

Speaker A

before excellent thank you so much Lisa so we are going to wrap up if your question was not answered today and you'd like to receive an answer we also encourage you to check out beagle you'll see on the screen here there's a an icon

Speaker A

of the beagle plus that is our chatbot and our chatbot is trained to uh seek out Legal Information um It's a Wonderful resource and so you can try that as well you'll find beagle on the bottom right hand corner of the People's

Speaker A

Law School website uh site pages with that I am going to ask Lisa and Tony if they have any last thoughts that they would like to share before we officially wrap up today's webinar so uh Lisa I'm going to start with you again thank you

Speaker A

so much for for joining us today is there anything uh maybe that we didn't cover today that you'd like to highlight or anything that maybe came to mind for you during today's session that you'd like to share with our guests I think

Speaker A

one thing to focus on is that there's so so many positive tools under the strata of property act to help improve Communications and planning and to really get to know those tools um it doesn't all have to fall into a dispute

Speaker A

um and uh you know I'm I'm very optimistic that uh we're going to get a lot of more now with the depreciation report requirements electrical planning reports we're going to get a lot more in information in communities that will

Speaker A

help us plan and avoid um some Discord going forward so um I guess I'm leaving with a note of optimism in terms of where we're going fabulous Thank you Lisa and and I know I'm definitely leading with um an

Speaker A

emphasis on that strata of property act as a resource that um non-adversarial approach to communication and also that sharing of information and and of course Tony's proactive um maintenance that is really striking home um as I mentioned with our roof in particular um Tony we

Speaker A

would love to to hear from you anything that teams mind during today's webinar that you would like to share with our guests before we wrap up today uh Avail yourself of all the resources that are available there are endless resources on

Speaker A

the Cho website that link to other websites um but the BC housing website has under the consumer um protection division has a wonderful series called maintenance matters and they're all about different types of building components and services that are

Speaker A

available um take your take advantage of them download them look at them read them uh they're everything that you could imagine for buildings and there are always more coming there's a very good research component with BC housing um educate yourselves as much as

Speaker A

possible it makes an enormous difference when you're going through major projects Tony thank you so much it has been such a pleasure having you and we appreciate everything that you have shared with us here today so a big thank you again Tony

Speaker A

Lisa all of our guests this has been such an informative session uh we very much look forward to seeing everyone again soon so with that we're going to conclude for the day and wish everyone a wonderful week thank you

Topics:strata livingBC stratastrata councilsreserve fundingwarranty claimsservice contractsstrata managementproperty maintenancelegal informationPeoples Law School

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the main financial challenges faced by strata corporations in BC?

Strata corporations often struggle with low reserve funding, which leads to deferred maintenance and costly emergency repairs. Balancing affordability with proactive planning is a key challenge.

Why is it important for strata councils to review service contracts carefully?

Service contracts can have long-term financial implications and complex terms such as renewal cycles and cancellation clauses. Careful review helps avoid unexpected costs and ensures better management.

What documents should strata council members have access to for effective governance?

Council members should have access to insurance policies, bylaws, registered strata plans, and for newer buildings, warranty documents to make informed decisions and manage risks effectively.

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