In the Report on Complex Stratas, published today, the British Columbia Law Institute’s Strata Property Law Project Committee is calling for reforms to the Strata Property Act and the Strata Property Regulation to improve sections, types, and phases—the three tools used to manage legal issues arising from complex stratas.
“Stratas have become more complex since the first appearance of sections, types, and phases in the 1970s,” explained committee chair Patrick Williams. “More and more stratas are developed in multiple phases, consist of different styles of buildings, or contain mixed uses. Unfortunately, the law hasn’t kept pace with these developments. The time is ripe to bring the law up to date.”
The report recommends 68 reforms, including:
- 29 recommendations on sections, which propose clarifying the procedures for creating and cancelling sections, spelling out section powers and duties, and strengthening section governance, budgets, and finances;
- 14 recommendations on types, which propose clarifying the procedures for creating and cancelling types and fine-tuning the operation of types; and
- 25 recommendations on phases, which propose enhancing the oversight of the phasing process, simplifying governance in a phased strata corporation, and providing additional protections for the financial interests of owners in a phased strata.
The report also contains draft legislation, illustrating how the legislative assembly could implement these recommendations.
This report is the second report in BCLI’s Strata Property Law Project—Phase Two, a multiyear project supported by nine funding organizations with the goal of developing the next generation of strata-property law for British Columbia. BCLI strives to be a leader in law reform by carrying out the best in scholarly law-reform research and writing and the best in outreach relating to law reform.
The complete report can be found on BCLI’s website at: https://www.bcli.org/publication/report-on-complex-stratas