Strata
The BrokerFold Team — Product + Engineering
Last reviewed
Strata is British Columbia’s system of divided property ownership: you own your strata lot — the apartment, townhouse or bare-land parcel — outright, together with a proportionate share of the common property, and you automatically belong to the strata corporation that governs the whole. It is BC’s answer to the condominium, created under the Strata Property Act, and it comes with its own vocabulary that out-of-province agents and buyers need to relearn almost word by word.
How the machine runs
Every owner is a member of the strata corporation. An elected strata council handles day-to-day decisions, usually with a management company executing; the big decisions — budgets, bylaw changes, special levies — go to votes at general meetings. Owners pay monthly strata fees toward operations and the contingency reserve fund (CRF), the savings account for the roof, envelope and elevators of the future. Bylaws and rules bind everyone: pets, rentals, renovations, barbecues — strata living is contract living, and the bylaws are the contract.
What a buyer’s agent actually checks
The building’s paper trail tells you more than the suite does. The Form B information certificate is the corporation’s formal disclosure — fees, arrears, CRF balance, litigation, bylaw changes — and the meeting minutes and depreciation report behind it reveal how the building talks about its own problems. A gorgeous unit in a corporation with a starved reserve and a leaking envelope is a special levy wearing new paint. Fees that look “cheap” against a comparable building usually mean underfunding, not efficiency.
Translation table for Ontario minds
Strata corporation ≈ condominium corporation. Strata council ≈ condo board. Form B ≈ status certificate. Strata fees ≈ common expenses. Special levy ≈ special assessment. The equivalences are close but not exact — timelines, fee caps and disclosure contents differ — which is why BC practice runs on BC documents, and why agents expanding westward (or platforms serving them, as we do) have to speak the local dialect rather than transliterate Ontario’s. The concept extends to presale purchases too: what you’re buying off the plans is a future strata lot, bylaws and all.
Frequently asked questions
Is a strata the same as a condo?
Functionally, yes — strata is BC's legal framework for what Ontario calls a condominium. You own your unit and share the building. The statutes, documents and vocabulary differ: Strata Property Act instead of the Condominium Act, Form B instead of a status certificate, strata council instead of a condo board.
What do strata fees cover?
Operating costs of the common property — insurance on the building, maintenance, management, utilities the corporation pays — plus contributions to the contingency reserve fund for future repairs. What they don't cover arrives as a special levy, which is why reserve health matters more than the fee amount.
Are houses ever strata properties?
Yes. Bare-land stratas subdivide land rather than a building, so detached homes and townhouse complexes can be strata-titled with shared roads, utilities or amenities. The bylaws and fees follow the title, not the building type — always check how a BC property is held.
Keep reading
- Form B The Form B Information Certificate is a BC strata corporation's formal disclosure — fees, reserve fund, litigation and bylaws — before a buyer commits.
- Presale A presale is buying a BC home before it's built — a contract with a developer under REDMA's disclosure rules, with its own risks, taxes and timelines.
- Realtor websites BC Board coverage, BC's VOW-only sold-data rules, and the compliance chrome a BC realtor website carries by default — plus live templates and CAD pricing.