A look back at recommendations on mental capacity and retaining legal counsel

It’s been just over a month since the BC Branch of the Canadian Bar Association published its Agenda for Justice 2017. The agenda explicitly called for the implementation of four BCLI reports. But aspects of the agenda may have an implicit bearing on past BCLI work. For example, the agenda proposes amending the Mental Health Act to provide that “a patient, who is the subject of a physician’s decision to involuntarily detain that patient, has the option Read more…

Strata corporation’s duty to repair “may include work necessary to make good or sound that which may never have been good or sound”: BC Court of Appeal

In Frank v The Owners, Strata Plan LMS 355, 2017 BCCA 92, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia considered an appeal from a supreme-court decision that had held a strata corporation responsible to install railings needed to bring a recreational rooftop deck up to code. The court of appeal upheld the earlier decision, noting that the duty to repair found in section 72 of the Strata Property Act includes “work necessary to make good or sound that Read more…

Manitoba Law Reform Commission calls for streamlining of rules governing substitute attorneys

In its recently published report Creating Efficiencies in the Law: Substitute Powers of Attorney (PDF), the Manitoba Law Reform Commission has recommended that Manitoba’s Powers of Attorney Act be amended to streamline the process of allowing a successor attorney appointed under an enduring power of attorney to step in if the original attorney ceases to act. Under the current provisions, the law “requires that once an attorney has assumed power under an enduring power of attorney the Read more…

An Update on the Civil Resolution Tribunal

While the BCLI is working on projects to reform the Strata Property Act and to identify opportunities for financing litigation, the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) continues to implement new programs that will bring changes in both areas. The CRT has been handling strata property disputes since last year. Last month, in a presentation to the Condominium Home Owners Association of BC, the CRT reported that since their online strata property tribunal was implemented in July Read more…

Strata corporation’s fines against business owner found to be significantly unfair

In Omnicare Pharmacy Ltd v The Owners, Strata Plan LMS 2854, 2017 BCSC 256, a strata corporation and an owner of a nonresidential strata lot grappled with some of the challenges of “[l]iving and operating a business on the Downtown Eastside.” The case involved a longstanding dispute over whether the owner’s business attracted conduct that could be considered a nuisance. The court found, on a review of the strata corporation’s bylaws, that many of those bylaws Read more…