New rules on terminating a strata in force
August 2, 2016
BY Kevin Zakreski
New rules on terminating a strata came into force on 28 July 2016. At that time, order in council 592/2016 was adopted. The order in council brought into force the termination provisions of Bill 40, Natural Gas Development Statutes Amendment Act, 2015. These provisions amended part 16 of the Strata Property Act, which deals with cancelling a strata plan and winding up a strata corporation. OIC 592/2016 also contained changes to the Strata Property Regulation and the Bare Land Strata Plan Cancellation Regulation.
The most noteworthy change in the new legislation is the lowering of the voting threshold to authorize termination. That threshold previously required a unanimous resolution. Now, it requires a resolution passed by an 80 percent vote. To protect the interests of any dissenting owners, the legislation also requires that the strata corporation apply to the supreme court after a termination resolution has been passed, to obtain an order confirming that the decision to terminate is in the best interests of the owners and is not significantly unfair to an owner, a registered charge holder, or a creditor.
More background on the changes can be found in the ministry’s media release. The changes originated in BCLI’s Strata Property Law Project—Phase Two, and the webpage for that project contains a host of information on the rationale for the changes. In addition, an earlier blog post summarized the main provisions of Bill 40.
