What a strata corporation actually is, who owns what, and which rules bind you — the groundwork everything else in this library builds on.
If you have just bought into a strata, or you have owned for years and never quite had the structure explained, this is the place to start. A BC strata corporation is a legal entity created the moment a strata plan is deposited in the Land Title Office. Every owner is automatically a member of it. It owns the common property, it carries the insurance on the building, it collects the money, and it is governed by the Strata Property Act — not by whoever is loudest at the annual general meeting.
Most of the confusion owners run into traces back to one of three questions. Where does my unit end and common property begin? That boundary decides who pays for a repair, and it is not where most people assume. What is the difference between a bylaw and a rule? They are created differently, enforced differently, and only one of them can carry a fine on its own. Who actually has the authority to decide this? Sometimes it is the council, sometimes it takes a majority vote, and sometimes it takes a three-quarters vote at a general meeting.
The articles below work through each of those in plain language, with the sections of the Act named so you can check the source yourself. Once the structure makes sense, the money questions and the governance disputes get considerably easier to follow.
"I own my parking stall" is one of the most confidently wrong sentences in BC strata living. There are four ways a stall can be held, and each permits something different.
BC gives strata corporations a real right of entry to a strata lot. It is also a narrow one, and it lives in the bylaws rather than the body of the Act.
The most valuable coverage on a new BC strata's common property expires about fifteen months after the first person moved in — often before the first council was even elected.
The strata plan is the document that decides who pays for what. Here's how to find it, what the hatching and the LCP labels mean, and how to read a boundary.
Unit entitlement is the number that sets your monthly strata fee and the weight of your vote — and almost nobody is told what theirs is or where it came from.
Winding up a strata in BC lets owners sell the whole building, often for redevelopment. Here's when it makes sense, the 80% vote, and the court-approval steps.
Bylaws and rules aren't the same thing in a BC strata. Here's how each is created, which one can govern what happens inside your unit, and how to enforce both.
Common property and limited common property aren't the same thing in a BC strata — and the difference decides who pays for balconies, parking, and repairs.
A strata is BC's version of a condo: you own your home and share the common areas with every other owner. Here's how stratas work, in plain English.
In a bare land strata you own your lot and the house on it, while the strata runs shared roads, utilities and amenities. What it means, the pros and cons, and who insures what.
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