Every Strata Must Have a Strata Council

DOES A DUPLEX OR SMALL STRATA NEED A STRATA COUNCIL?

In 2025 the BC Supreme Court confirmed that even if there are only two strata lot owners that a Strata must have a Council and there must be council meetings.

That case involved a Strata that had three residential strata lots. Two of the strata lots were owned by a company that rented those strata lots to tenants and the third strata lot was owned by a person that lived in the strata lot. The Strata had never elected a Council and therefore the powers and duties of the Strata were never exercised by the Council.

The court stated that the reason no Council had been elected was because the company believed that as the owner of the majority of the strata lots it had the legal authority to make all the decisions without involving the other owner.

The court stated that even if it was true that the corporate owner could pass resolution that only required a majority vote that was not true for a resolution requiring a ¾ majority. We note that for a duplex, no Owner can pass a majority vote and essentially every resolution requires unanimous agreement.

Importantly, the court confirmed that annual general meetings and council meetings were required for several reasons including:

• Every Owner is entitled to be provided with information about decisions.

• Every Owner is entitled to communicate their preferences regarding a decision.

• Every Owner is entitled to information about decisions.

• A Strata requires an “operating and functional…democracy”.

There is a lot of excellent commentary in that court decision, 0899148 B.C. Ltd. v. Ching (2025 BCSC 1694).

However, what we want to emphasize is that the processes required by the Strata Property Act may seem overly formal or a burden for a small Strata but they are essential to an operating and functional democracy. We have experience with several small Stratas where the Owners did not believe it was necessary to have the formalities of a Strata until something went wrong and they realized that the Strata Community was not as robust and resilient as they had expected. A Strata Community is most useful when there are compromises that must be made and when reasonable people can disagree but it should be built and maintained before conflicts arise.