Dear Tony: Every year, our strata council goes through the same problem with the same owners before Canada Day. They start a petition to amend the bylaws that would allow owners to install flagpoles on their units.
Every year, we have the meeting and every year, the amendment gets defeated.
We are now in year five, and they never manage to get enough support for the amendment. This year, they have advised that they will use the Civil Resolution Tribunal to force the strata to permit installation of flags.
We are a bit concerned because we do not want owners attaching holders or poles to our buildings and causing long-term damage. One owner has already attached a flagpole to the side of his townhouse.
We are mostly concerned about the jurisdiction of the Civil Resolution tribunal and whether the tribunal could order something like this.
JVW, Nanaimo
Many owners still have the perception that their home is their castle. In a strata, your home is not your castle; you simply reside in a part of the castle.
Even in bare-land-strata developments, where owners have more control over their individual homes, a strata can adopt bylaws that regulate use and appearance of strata lots, including the buildings on the strata lots.
For all other strata complexes, such as townhouses or apartment-style units, the bylaws of the strata corporation apply to the strata lots and common property.
Anyone who alters common property without written permission is subject to those bylaws. The Civil Resolution Tribunal will come into effect later this year, and most strata disputes that relate to the collection of money, enforcement of bylaws, compliance with the Strata Property Act and strata regulations and bylaws may be resolved through the tribunal.
In your situation, where an owner installed a flagpole attached to a building, altering common property without the permission required in the bylaws, the strata corporation may enforce the bylaws, impose fines, remove the alteration and seek damages for repairs from that owner.
A successful decision from the tribunal may include an order for the owner to pay those fines and any damages to the common property that had to be repaired, an order to comply with the bylaws and an order to cease altering common property without written permission.
The same types of orders to comply with the act or other enactments of law could apply against a strata corporation. There are no laws that permit owners to install flags and override strata legislation.
If you would like to test-drive the new Civil Resolution Tribunal system, go to civilresolutionbc.ca.
Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners Association.