Consultation Paper on Terminating a Strata

Abstract

The British Columbia Law Institute began work on the Strata Property Law Project — Phase Two in summer 2013. The phase-two project builds on the consultation and research carried out in phase one of the project. It addresses legislative reform of the Strata Property Act. With the goal of promoting the development of the next generation of the act, the project’s purpose is to make recommendations in the following seven areas: (1) fundamental changes to a strata; (2) complex stratas; (3) leasehold stratas; (4) common property; (5) selected governance issues; (6) selected insurance issues; (7) selected land-title issues.

The Consultation Paper on Terminating a Strata is about one aspect of the first area. It concerns what the Strata Property Act calls cancellation of a strata plan and winding up of a strata corporation, which this consultation paper labels, for simplicity’s sake, termination of a strata. Termination can be considered the end of life for a strata — the ultimate fundamental change. The timing is right to consider termination, as the earliest stratas created in British Columbia, which date to the 1960s, may soon be encountering difficult choices over repairs, renewal, or termination.

The consultation paper makes 21 tentative recommendations for reform of the law. It begins by tackling the key issue of the voting threshold to authorize termination, proposing a move from the current rule of unanimous consent to a rule setting the threshold at 80 percent of all voters. From there, the consultation paper moves on to consider the notice and procedural reforms needed to integrate this new form of resolution into the Strata Property Act’s existing collective decision-making system, the measures that should be put in place to protect the interests of dissenting owners and registered chargeholders, and the appropriate transitional rule for the project committee’s reforms.

Keywords: strata property, condominium, termination, cancellation, winding up, strata plan, strata corporation, common property, land title, survey, amendment, real property