Common Expenses and Strata Fees

DOES AN OWNER HAVE TO PAY STRATA FEES TO COVER A COMMON EXPENSE THEY DO NOT DIRECTLY BENEFIT FROM?

Strata fees are calculated as each Strata Lot's share of the budgeted operating and Contingency Reserve Fund contributions, using the formula set out in the section 99 or 100 of the Strata Property Act. Compliance with that prescribed formula is, as a general rule, not significantly unfair under s.164, even where one Owner ends up paying for more than they personally use (King Day Holdings Ltd. v. The Owners, Strata Plan LMS3851, 2020 BCCA 342). That general rule is not absolute, and this article covers both where it holds and where it gives way.

HOW DOES A STRATA NORMALLY DIVIDE UP ITS EXPENSES?

A Strata normally raises money to pay its expenses from all Owners according to unit entitlement, and every Owner contributes to the same operating and Contingency Reserve Fund regardless of how much they personally use any particular amenity or system (Strata Property Act, s.99). That formula can only be changed to a different basis by a unanimous vote taken after the Strata's first annual general meeting (Change to basis for calculation of contribution, s.100 of the Act).

Some Owners do not consider this a fair basis for the calculation of Strata Fees. The presumption in the Act is that an Owner who simply benefits less than a neighbour from a shared system does not, on that basis alone, have a claim that the Strata is charging them unfairly.

DOES THIS MEAN AN OWNER MUST PAY FOR A COMMON EXPENSE THEY DO NOT BENEFIT FROM?

if the Strata has sections and the expense relates solely to a section the Owner is not part of their Strata Fees would not relate to those expenses. Where an expense for the repair and maintenance of common property relates solely to the Strata Lots in one section, the Strata Property Act requires that expense to be shared only among that section's Owners (Expenses of section, s.195 of the Act). Our understanding is that whether an expense "relates solely" to one section turns on a weighed set of factors: whether the property or system provides exclusive access or use to one section's Strata Lots, whether the other section's Owners have any use for or access to it, and whether the utilities or services running through it serve only one section.

For example, our understanding is that where common-property catwalks provide the only means of access to a residential section's Lots, are not used or usable by a commercial section, and carry utilities serving only the residential Lots, the catwalks relate solely to the residential section — the commercial section owes none of the special-levy costs of repairing them (Section 2 of the Owners, Strata Plan LMS 257 v. The Owners, Strata Plan LMS 257, 2025 BCSC 1985).

It is a similar situation when there are types of Strata Lots identified by bylaw and a contribution to the operating fund relates to and benefits only one type of Strata Lot.

WHAT IF THE EXPENSE SEEMS UNRELATED TO AN OWNER?

An expense can still benefit the whole Strata even where an Owner's Lot is not physically adjacent to it. Our understanding is that a building envelope which structurally protects and shelters a mixed-use building, including Lots not directly located within that building, benefits the whole Strata Corporation indirectly, so all Owners contribute to its repair by unit entitlement, even Owners of stand-alone Lots elsewhere in the development (The Residential Section of the Owners, Strata Plan NW 3365 v. The Commercial Section of the Owners, Strata Plan NW 3365, 2026 BCSC 176). Shelter, structural protection, and indirect benefit to Common Property or Limited Common Property elsewhere in the building can be enough to make an expense a common expense that is paid through Strata Fees from every Strata Lot, even where the Owner raising the complaint gains not benefit and has no consequence if it is not maintained. This is because, at least in part, every Owner owns the Common Property as a Tenant in Common - so, even though they get no direct benefit from that common property, they are an owner of that property).

CAN A STRATA BE FORCED TO KEEP AN OLD, DIFFERENT COST-SHARING ARRANGEMENT?

A Strata's insistence on reverting to strict unit entitlement can itself be significantly unfair in exceptional circumstances, even though unit entitlement is the Act's own default formula (King Day Holdings, 2020 BCCA 342). It is important to recognize that the exceptional-circumstances exception is narrow: it applies where an established, long-relied-upon different allocation practice is unilaterally abandoned without a duly authorized resolution. The Court of Appeal found exactly this where a Strata and one Owner had operated for roughly a decade under a mutually agreed, differential cost-allocation formula, never formalized by unanimous vote, until a new owner acquired a controlling majority and reverted unilaterally to strict unit entitlement, imposing significant new financial burdens on the original Owner (King Day Holdings). An Owner raising this kind of claim is ordinarily expected to first put forward a s.100 resolution or other available internal process (which were unsuccessful) before alleging a significantly unfair act. There is an exception to the requirement to use internal processes when it would plainly be an empty exercise.

A STRATA'S EXPENSE ALLOCATION SHOULD RESPECT THE SCHEME OF THE ACT.

Unit entitlement is the Act's default, and complying with it is generally a safe answer to a cost-allocation complaint as significantly unfair. The Act provides tools, through either sectioning or a types bylaw, to apportion common expenses in a manner that is fair to all Owners.