Closer Look at the British Columbia Law Institute Report on Complex Stratas

The British Columbia Law Institute (BCLI) released a Report on Complex Stratas in June 2017.

In British Columbia, a strata corporation is a legal entity with all of the powers of a natural person who has full capacity. This means that it can sue or be sued, enter into contracts and hire employees. There are residential strata corporations, commercial strata corporations.snd other categories.

"This report is the second published in BCLI’s Strata Property Law Project—Phase Two. BCLI’s work on strata-property law reaches back to phase one of this project, which concluded in 2012 with recommendations to examine the following seven areas: (1) fundamental changes to a strata; (2) complex stratas; (3) selected governance issues; (4) common property; (5) selected land-title issues; (6) selected insurance issues; (7) leasehold stratas."

"Complex stratas is not a term found in the Strata Property Act. It’s an expression used to describe trends in the real-estate sector. Strata-property legislation was developed in the 1960s as a means to promote high-density residential housing. But the legislation has never restricted strata properties to just this form. Architecturally varied and mixed-use stratas began to spring up in the 1970s. At that time, the legislation gained three tools to manage the legal issues that arose in the wake of increasingly complex stratas: sections, types, and phases. This report marks the first comprehensive review of these three tools in a generation."

"The report contains 68 recommendations for reform. The recommendations propose clarifying the procedures for creating and cancelling sections, spelling out section powers and duties, strengthening section governance, budgets, and finances, clarifying the procedures for creating and cancelling types and fine-tuning the operation of types, enhancing the oversight of the phasing process."

In a series of posts, the BCLI blog has been "taking a closer look at three key recommendations in the report":

• “Should the Strata Property Act continue to require a strata corporation to hold an annual general meeting after the deposit of each phase in a phased strata plan other than the first phase?”
• “Should strata corporations be allowed to allocate expenses paid for out of the contingency reserve fund to types?” 
• “Should sections be retained or repealed?”