Kai Mallari's Notes'

Who Maintains What in a BC Strata — The Owner-vs-Common Property Matrix (Home Systems)

4 min read

Who Maintains What in a BC Strata — The Owner-vs-Common Property Matrix

Claim: In BC, every part of a strata building falls into one of three categories — common property (strata maintains), limited common property (strata maintains structurally; bylaws can shift frequent cosmetic upkeep to the owner), and strata lot (owner maintains). Getting the category wrong costs you either the repair bill or the right to demand it.

Mechanism

The Strata Property Act s.72(1) places an unqualified duty on the strata corporation to repair and maintain all common property (CP) and common assets.1 Standard Bylaw 8 extends this to limited common property (LCP) for items that are structural, exterior-facing, or require repair less frequently than once a year — regardless of which owner has exclusive use of the LCP.2

Standard Bylaw 2 places the parallel duty on owners for their strata lot interior and for any LCP maintenance that falls outside Bylaw 8’s strata-mandatory list.2

The load-bearing distinction for pipes: a main riser serving multiple units is always CP; a branch line in a boundary wall is CP; a branch line entirely within the strata lot serving only that lot is the owner’s.3

Conditions (when the rule shifts)

  • Bylaws can shift some LCP maintenance to the exclusive-use owner — but only for items that are not structural, not exterior-facing, and occur more than once a year (cleaning, drain clearing). A bylaw purporting to shift repair of the building structure or exterior is unenforceable under s.72(2).1
  • An alteration and indemnity agreement can shift future repair of an alteration to the lot owner when the strata approves the alteration (Standard Bylaw 6). This is not the same as the statutory maintenance split.
  • Some stratas amend bylaws to take on items that are default owner-responsibility (e.g. hot water tanks). Always check your registered bylaws — they may be more favourable than the statutory baseline.

Scope (when this does not apply)

  • This framework applies to strata buildings registered under the BC Strata Property Act. Bare land stratas, phased stratas, and sections have their own variations.
  • The matrix above gives defaults — the strata plan’s designations and the registered bylaws always override the defaults for your specific building.

Trade-offs (cost of getting it wrong)

  • You pay for a CP repair yourself: you may not be reimbursed. The rule is: notify the strata in writing first; give them the chance to act; only if they refuse and the situation is urgent should you proceed.
  • You assume the strata will fix something that is actually yours: the strata has no duty to repair your strata lot, and may fine you for failing to maintain it.
  • A mis-classified leak triggers a deductible chargeback: if a loss in a CP pipe is wrongly attributed to the owner and charged back, the s.135 written-particulars process is the owner’s procedural defence — the strata must give you notice and a chance to respond before the charge is valid.1

Sources

Scope (note extent)

Covers the statutory default maintenance split under SPA + Standard Bylaws for a standard condominium strata in BC. Does not cover bare land stratas, phased stratas, or the insurance consequence of mis-classification (→ SPA s.158 Deductible Chargeback Crosses the Boundary Between Common and Owner Property (Home Systems)).

Idea Compass

North: Where this comes from

East: Tensions / failure

South: Where this leads

West: What’s similar

  • condominium act frameworks in other provinces — same three-category logic, different statute references
  • water-heater (Home Systems) — a concrete worked example of a strata lot item with chargeback exposure

Footnotes

  1. Strata Property Act [SBC 1998] Chapter 43, ss.72, 72(2)(a), s.135 — BC Laws — https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/98043_05 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Strata Property Regulation [BC Reg 43/2000], Schedule 1, Standard Bylaws 2 and 8 — BC Laws — https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/12_43_2000 ↩ ↩2

  3. Perpetual Strata & Realty, BC strata management — plumbing riser vs branch line classification — https://perpetualstrata.ca/strata-insurance-water-leaks-bc-responsibility/ ↩

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