Strata paperwork
How to read strata documents before buying a Vancouver condo or townhouse
Read four things before you buy into a strata: the Form B, the depreciation report's funding model, two years of minutes and the insurance summary. You are looking for the bill that hasn't arrived yet, because the minutes usually show it long before a special levy vote does.
By Kyle Mark, REALTOR®. 11 years in construction, 6 with the Delta Fire Department. Updated November 1, 2026.
Start with this: you're buying the building
You don't just buy the home, you buy what's wrong with it, and everything expensive is invisible on a Saturday afternoon. The new kitchen and the fresh paint tell you about the unit. The paper tells you about the building. A client of mine bought a one-bedroom with another agent a few years ago, raised the rainscreen question, and was told it wasn't a big deal. Within a couple of years that one-bedroom had a special levy that devastated them.
You want a proactive strata, not a reactive one. Reading these documents is where my 11 years in construction earn their keep, because I know what a problem is, what it isn't and what usually causes it.
Form B: the fee, the reserve and approved levies
The Form B Information Certificate gives you the current fee, the contingency reserve fund balance, parking and storage allocation, and any special levy already approved. Ask for it before you write if you can. If a levy is approved, ask your lawyer who pays it and put the answer in the contract, because you never want to discover that at completion.
Depreciation report: skip the scary total
A depreciation report is engineers walking the whole building, from the windows and the roof to the envelope and the elevator, then writing down how much life each part has left, when it gets replaced and what that may cost. It can run several hundred pages. The Province of BC required stratas in Metro Vancouver with five or more lots to have one by July 1, 2026, and the annual three-quarter vote to skip it is gone. So the building you're looking at should have the document.
The total on the summary page is a scary number that doesn't mean much on its own. Go to the funding model. Find what the annual contribution needs to be to stay funded, then compare it to what the strata is actually putting in. If those two numbers are far apart, your fee is going up or a levy is coming, whether anybody has told you or not. Also look for a big project in the report with no funding motion passed.
Minutes: where a building tells the truth
Read the last two years, and search for these words:
- Engineer's report. A strata that starts paying engineers already suspects something.
- Envelope, remediation, membrane, leak.
- Levy, especially one being discussed but not yet voted on. That one is not in the price yet, and the timing of that bill is the whole negotiation.
- Gaps. Minutes that stop halfway through the year tell you something too.
A range is not a number. I sold a townhouse in a small complex where the coming envelope work was in the minutes and fully disclosed, but only as a range. We gave the buyers a discount on price, and what I heard afterward was that the discount was about half of what the levy may be. If the number isn't firm, assume it's the top of the range.
Insurance: find the water damage deductible
Find the deductible for water damage, then find out who pays it. In a strata, your pipe failure runs downhill into somebody else's unit, and depending on the bylaws and the size of that deductible, it can land on you personally rather than on the building.
A deductible that doubled at the last renewal should put up a red flag, because it can point to a history of water issues. Find out why. Is it people overflowing a bathtub, or is it the windows, the parkade or a mechanical system failing? Those are very different buildings.
Age, size and who is running it
The 20 to 30 year mark is a sensitive band. Roofs, windows, siding and deck membranes can all come due within the same few years, so ask how the strata prepared. Did fees rise every year to build the reserve, or do they usually pay by special levy? Size matters as well. I'm not telling you not to buy in a small complex, but a big bill split across 11 or 12 owners hits very differently than one split across a few hundred.
Be careful with self-managed stratas. I've seen some run better than a management company, and I've sold two good ones, but that's rare. In most cases I find they are saving the fee because they don't have the money, and they are reactive. When you see self-managed on a listing, the hairs on your neck should stand up a little.
Don't shop by the lowest fee either. On a new building the developer sets the first budget, before a single owner has moved in, while also trying to sell you the unit. Divide the fee by the square footage and compare it to buildings of the same age and type. A real two-lot strata can honestly cost very little to run. A tower with a gym and two elevators can't.
I was a sprinkler fitter for years. Fire suppression does nothing visible for decades, and then one day it's a repipe through occupied suites. None of that shows up in a fee for the first 20 years. All of it shows up eventually.