Reading a Strata Like We Do
The depreciation report, and what a good one contains. The five-year cycle took effect 1 July 2024 under section 94 of the Strata Property Act and Part 6 of its regulation, ending the annual deferral vote. Stratas of fewer than five lots are exempt. Those in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the Capital Regional District without a report dated after 31 December 2020 had until 1 July 2026; the rest of the province has until 1 July 2027. Since 1 July 2025 only defined professionals may write one, engineers, architects, applied science technologists, accredited appraisers, certified reserve planners and quantity surveyors. A good report rests on an on-site inventory, projects thirty years forward, and offers at least three cash-flow funding models. A 2019 report handed to you in 2026 is not stale. It is non-compliant.
The reserve, judged against the report and not a rule of thumb. There is no magic percentage. Since 1 November 2023 a strata must contribute at least 10% of its operating budget to the reserve every year, and Regulation 6.1 requires it to weigh the most recent depreciation report in setting that figure. So take the reserve balance off the Form B and lay it beside years five, ten and fifteen of the report's own funding models. A fund tracking the lowest model, on a building facing roof and envelope work inside a decade, is a levy in slow motion. Under section 96, reserve spending on work the depreciation report recommends needs only a majority vote; everything else needs three-quarters.
Two years of minutes, read for pattern. Minutes must be kept six years under section 35, and records produced within two weeks of a request, one week if the bylaws say so, at up to 25 cents a page. Two years is enough. You are reading not for drama but for repetition: the same leak at the same stack, an engineering proposal received and never awarded, quorum failures, three council resignations in eighteen months. Deferred maintenance has a vocabulary, monitor, revisit in the spring, obtain further quotes, and it recurs.
The Form B, and the levy it may not yet show. Requested under section 59 and due within seven days, it gives monthly fees, amounts the seller owes, approved special levies and their dates, the reserve balance less approved expenditures, unfiled bylaws and resolutions, notice of any pending three-quarter-vote resolution, litigation and tribunal proceedings, work orders, and, since 1 April 2023, a summary of insurance coverage. The rules, the current budget and the most recent depreciation report come attached. A levy passes on a three-quarter vote under section 108 and may be spent only on its stated purpose; on a sale the seller owes instalments due before conveyance and you owe those after. Read the pending-resolution line twice, that is where the next levy first appears in writing, and check the proceedings line against the Civil Resolution Tribunal's public decisions database.
Insurance, and the deductible problem. The strata must insure common property and the buildings on the strata plan at full replacement value (section 149), and owners are named insureds (section 155). The deductible is a common expense under section 158, but the strata may sue an owner to recover it where that owner is responsible for the loss, and since 14 August 2020 it must tell owners as soon as feasible of any material change in coverage, a deductible increase included. The numbers moved: the Condominium Home Owners Association described in October 2025 a water deductible risen from $25,000 to $100,000, against an industry range of $100,000 to $250,000. Your policy needs deductible-assessment coverage sized to the strata's current figure.
Bylaws that change what you can do. Since 24 November 2022 residential rental restriction bylaws are void and age restrictions are limited to 55-and-over (sections 123.1 and 123.2), with exemptions added 1 May 2023 for children and younger spouses. Short-term rental bylaws survive, may ban outright, and may fine to $1,000 a day, and they sit on top of the provincial principal-residence requirement, which as of 1 June 2026 applies in both the Township of Langley and the City of Langley. Read the filed bylaws, not the strata's summary of them: pets, parking, alterations and rentals are where a building quietly disqualifies itself for your household.
Engineering, remediation and the report now due. Ask for envelope and engineering reports and the remediation history, then set those dates against the warranty clock. BC's mandatory new-home coverage runs two years on labour and materials, five on the building envelope including water penetration, and ten on structure, with common-property limits of the lesser of $100,000 per dwelling unit or $2.5 million per building, and on common property that clock starts at first occupancy or first transfer of title in the building, not at your completion. One item is imminent: stratas of five or more lots in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the Capital Region must obtain an electrical planning report by 31 December 2026, four months out. Ask whether it is commissioned.
The order we run it in. Depreciation report and its date. Reserve balance against that report's funding models. Two years of minutes. The Form B, line by line. Levies, paid and proposed. The insurance summary and the current deductibles. The filed bylaws against how you intend to live. Engineering and warranty dates last. An hour in that sequence tells you more than a day in any other.
Sourced from the Strata Property Act and Strata Property Regulation as published on BC Laws, the Province of BC's strata housing guidance on depreciation reports, contingency reserve funds, special levies, Form B and electrical planning reports, BCREA Legally Speaking #556 and #599, a Condominium Home Owners Association bulletin dated 15 October 2025, and BC Housing's home warranty regulatory bulletin, all verified 24 August 2026. This report describes and informs; it is not legal, insurance or financial advice, and a specific corporation deserves specific verification of its own documents. Want your strata's documents read this way before you remove conditions?