Buying a Strata Condo or Townhouse in BC: Documents to Review Before Subject Removal

When you buy a strata lot in BC, you buy a home and a share in a corporation that runs everything outside your walls. Its finances, disputes and repair plans become partly yours on completion.

The subject period is usually your last practical chance to read its records before the deal is firm. This guide covers the documents to ask for, what the Strata Property Act requires the strata to provide, and the warning signs that deserve a closer look.

Why the subject period is the time to read strata documents

Once you remove your subjects, the contract is firm. BC’s home buyer rescission period lets buyers of most residential property, strata lots included, cancel within three business days after the seller accepts the offer, but the buyer must pay the seller 0.25% of the purchase price, and leasehold properties are excluded. It is a cooling-off window, not a document review. The usual tool is a subject clause for a satisfactory review of strata documents, and it only helps if the documents arrive in time.

A prospective buyer has no right of their own to the strata’s records. The Strata Property Act gives that right to owners and to anyone an owner authorizes in writing. The strata then has two weeks to make records available, or one week for bylaws and rules, and may charge a capped fee for copies. Ask the seller early for written authorization or a document package, so a short subject period does not run out while you wait. Keep everything you receive: you will need the same documents when you sell.

The Form B information certificate

The Form B is a prescribed form the strata must provide within one week of a request from an owner, a purchaser, or someone authorized by either. It reports, as of its date:

• Fees and money owed. The monthly strata fees for the unit and any amount the owner owes the strata.
• Special levies. Any approved levy the owner still has to pay, and when it is due.
• The reserve fund and budget. The contingency reserve fund balance, less expenditures already approved, and any expected overspending of the current budget.
• Pending votes and unfiled changes. Notice of resolutions needing a 3/4, 80% or unanimous vote, and bylaw amendments not yet filed in the land title office.
• Proceedings and work orders. Court, arbitration and tribunal proceedings involving the strata, judgments or orders against it, and outstanding notices or work orders.
• Parking, storage and insurance. The stalls and lockers allocated to the unit, and a summary of the strata’s insurance.

The rules, the current budget and the most recent depreciation report must be attached. The strata is bound by the certificate’s information in its dealings with anyone who relied on it and acted reasonably, but an insurance summary that came from the strata’s insurer or insurance agent is not binding. The Province’s guidance puts the maximum fee at $35, plus up to 25 cents a page for copies.

Minutes: where problems usually show up first

A Form B is a snapshot. The minutes of council meetings and annual and special general meetings show how the strata got there and what is coming. Strata corporations must keep minutes for six years, so ask for at least the last two years, and more for an older building. Read them for:

• Water and the building envelope. Recurring leaks, roof or window failures, and references to engineering or envelope reports.
• Money worries. Talk of a future special levy, a low reserve fund or repairs being put off, even if nothing has been voted on yet.
• Insurance claims. Repeated claims, rising premiums or deductibles, and owners being charged for a deductible.
• Disputes. Complaints, bylaw fines, Civil Resolution Tribunal claims or lawsuits involving the strata or its contractors.

Read the financial statements alongside the budget. The strata must also keep reports on the repair or maintenance of major items, such as engineers’ reports, so a report mentioned in the minutes that is not in your package is worth asking for.

Depreciation report, reserve fund and special levies

A depreciation report estimates repair and replacement costs for the building’s major components over 30 years and sets out funding options. Since July 1, 2024, strata corporations with five or more lots must obtain one every five years, and the old option of deferring it by an annual 3/4 vote is gone. Existing stratas with no report, or whose latest report was received before December 31, 2020, had until July 1, 2026 in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the Capital Regional District, and have until July 1, 2027 elsewhere. If a Metro Vancouver building of five or more lots has no depreciation report from 2021 or later, ask why.

Compare the report’s recommendations with what the strata actually collects. Since November 1, 2023, the annual contribution to the contingency reserve fund must be at least 10% of the operating budget, but a building facing major repairs may need much more. A thin reserve fund next to an ageing roof, windows or mechanical systems often points to a special levy.

A special levy needs at least a 3/4 vote. If one is approved before your purchase completes, the Act splits it by due date: the seller owes the instalments payable before the transfer, and you owe those payable on or after it. If you want the seller to bear a levy you would otherwise inherit, negotiate that in the contract.

Bylaws and rules: what the strata can and cannot restrict

Read the current bylaws and rules, plus any approved amendments not yet filed, and focus on what affects how you will use the unit: pets, renovations and flooring, parking, short-term rentals and moving rules. Land title office records also show the strata plan, filed bylaws and changes to common property.

Two 2022 changes matter. Since November 24, 2022, residential rental-restriction bylaws are no longer valid, although strata corporations can still limit or ban short-term rentals. Age restriction bylaws can now only require that one or more residents be at least 55, with exemptions for some caregivers, spouses and children. An older bylaw limiting rentals or setting a lower age is not enforceable, but a valid 55+ bylaw may still decide who can live in the unit.

Insurance and your share of the deductible

Under section 149 of the Strata Property Act, the strata must insure the common property, common assets and buildings for full replacement value against major perils. Its deductible is paid as a common expense, but section 158 lets the strata sue an owner who is responsible for the loss to recover it. The Province notes that strata deductibles can range from $100,000 to $750,000 or more, and that an owner can be responsible without being at fault, for example when a dishwasher hose breaks.

Check the insurance summary for the water, earthquake and other deductibles, and look in the bylaws for any provision charging deductibles back to owners. Take the summary to your own insurance broker before you remove subjects, so your condo policy can be arranged to cover some or all of what you might owe. For the steps that follow subject removal, see our guide to what your lawyer does before completion day.

Buying a strata home? Have the documents reviewed before your subjects come off

Our real estate lawyers can review the Form B, minutes, financial statements, depreciation report, bylaws and insurance summary with you during the subject period, explain what they mean for your purchase, and then handle the conveyance through to completion.

Call 604-259-2844 or send us a message to arrange a consultation at our Vancouver office.