An Owner who receives a Strata's specific approval, and then actually acts on it, has a right that a court or the Tribunal must weigh, not something the Strata can withdraw for free. That reliance carries the most weight where the approval was an affirmative, specific representation and the Owner has gone beyond preparatory steps to real use or real expense.

A robust and resilient Strata Community depends on Owners being able to predict how a bylaw will actually be enforced against them, before it is enforced. Our recommendation is that Council document its reasons whenever it declines to enforce a bylaw against one Owner, not only when it decides to enforce it against another

Choosing not to fine a bylaw complaint is not, on its own, significantly unfair, because the Act gives Council real discretion in how it enforces the bylaws. What the case law consistently punishes is not the choice itself, but a Strata that had enough information to make that choice and did not make it, whether through an unexplained refusal to reach a conclusion, an unwillingness to act on evidence it obtained itself, or no investigation at all.