Just Joined Your Strata Council? Here's What to Ask in Your First 30 Days

You put your hand up at the AGM, nobody else did, and now you're on the council.

There's no training course. No certification. No manual. You walked out of that meeting as one of a handful of people responsible for a building worth tens of millions of dollars, and the onboarding was a handshake and possibly a binder.

That's not a flaw in the system so much as a consequence of its design. BC strata governance is deliberately kept close to the owners rather than handed to professionals. But it does mean new council members benefit enormously from knowing what to ask, and in what order. This post is the list nobody hands you.

Two things to understand before you ask anything

You have no authority on your own.

This is the one that catches people out. A strata council acts collectively. No individual council member, including the president, has authority to make decisions outside a properly convened council meeting. You can't authorise a repair on your own, instruct a contractor on your own, or promise an owner an outcome on your own. Decisions get made by the council, at a meeting, by majority vote, and they get minuted.

New members often learn this the awkward way, usually after telling a neighbour something the council hadn't actually decided.

It's not a corporate board, even though it looks like one.

If you come from a business background, the instinct is to map council onto a board of directors. It doesn't quite fit, and the difference matters.

In a business corporation, the board sets objectives, approves budgets, and delegates execution downward. In a strata corporation, it runs the other way: the owners approve the budget at a general meeting, and they delegate to council. Council carries out the strata corporation's duties between general meetings, but the significant money decisions belong to the owners, not to you.

Understanding that early saves a lot of frustration. Your job is largely to prepare good options, execute what's approved, and keep the building running in between.

One more thing worth knowing: under section 31 of the Strata Property Act, council members must act honestly and in good faith with a view to the best interests of the strata corporation, and exercise the care, diligence and skill of a reasonably prudent person in comparable circumstances. That standard is not especially high, and section 32 sets out what to do when you have a conflict of interest, but it's the standard you're now held to. Ask whether the strata carries errors and omissions insurance for council members; many do.

Questions about the building

Start here, because everything else follows from the physical reality of the place.

• What maintenance and repair work has been done in the last three to five years? Not just what was paid for. What was actually done, and did it solve the problem?
• What's currently deferred, and why? "Deferred" is where problems quietly live. Ask what was put off, when it was put off, and what the reasoning was.
• When were the major systems last inspected or serviced? Roof, building envelope, elevator, plumbing, boiler, parkade membrane, fire safety systems.
• Are there any recurring issues? The same unit reporting water ingress three times in five years is a pattern, not three incidents, but it only looks like a pattern if someone has been tracking it.
• Which contractors does the building use, and are they any good? Every building has a vendor who's excellent and one who isn't, and that distinction almost never appears in the paperwork.

Questions about the money

• What's the current balance of the contingency reserve fund, and what's it earmarked for?
• Do we have a current depreciation report, and has anyone read it? Since July 1, 2024, every strata with five or more lots must obtain one on a five-year cycle, and the old option to defer by a 3/4 vote is gone. Most councils have one. Far fewer use it. (How to Actually Use Your Strata's Depreciation Report)
• What proportion of the depreciation report's recommendations are we actually funding? There's a large gap between having a report and having a plan.
• Are there any special levies approved, pending, or likely?
• What did the last two budgets look like, and what drove the changes? Since November 2023, at least 10% of the annual operating budget must go into the contingency reserve fund.
• Is there any ongoing litigation or a Civil Resolution Tribunal matter? You want to know this before you find out at a meeting.

Questions about the records

This is the section most new council members skip, and it's the one that determines whether you can answer any of the questions above.

• Where do the strata's records actually live? The management company's portal? A council member's personal Google Drive? A filing cabinet? All three? If the answer is a spreadsheet somebody built a few years ago, ask who's been maintaining it since. (Why Strata Councils Keep Falling Back on Excel)
• Who controls access, and what happens when council changes? If the answer involves a password that only one person knows, that's worth fixing this year rather than next.
• Is council business being run through personal email accounts? Under section 35, correspondence sent or received by the strata corporation and council is a required record. If it's scattered across personal inboxes, it isn't really being kept, and the retention floor for correspondence is only two years. (When Strata Business Lives in Personal Inboxes, It Leaves With the Person)
• Is there any handover documentation from previous councils? Usually there isn't. Worth knowing for certain rather than assuming.
• How are decisions recorded? Minutes capture what was decided. Ask whether anyone records why, because the reasoning is what the next council will actually need.
• If we use software for any of this, can we get everything out of it? Worth asking of any system your strata relies on, including your manager's portal. If the answer is "not easily," your records are effectively hostage to a vendor relationship. Ask about export before you're switching, not during.

Under section 35 the strata corporation itself is responsible for keeping its records, not the property manager. You can delegate the work; the responsibility stays with the corporation. (The Data Your Strata Corporation Should Always Control)

Questions about what's coming

A few deadlines are worth being aware of in your first month, because they arrive whether or not anyone is tracking them.

• Electrical planning report. Strata corporations with five or more lots in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and the Capital Regional District need one by December 31, 2026. Elsewhere in BC, December 31, 2028. It assesses your building's electrical capacity for EV charging and heat pumps. If nobody has started this, that's a first-month conversation.
• Depreciation report cycle. Every five years. Know when yours is next due.
• Insurance renewal. Know the date and the deductible, particularly for water damage.
• The AGM. Know when your fiscal year ends, because the budget work starts well before the meeting.

What to ask your property manager

If your strata is professionally managed, ask for an onboarding package. A reasonable one includes current bylaws and rules, minutes from the last year or two, current financial statements, the management contract itself, the insurance policy, the depreciation report, and a short brief on active issues.

Not every manager produces this unprompted. Most will if you ask. And it's a fair request. You can't meet the standard of care in section 31 without the documents that ground it.

Read the management contract in particular. It tells you what your manager is actually obliged to do, which is often narrower or broader than councils assume, and it's the reference point for every "shouldn't they be handling that?" conversation you'll have this year.

Two things worth noticing about that package, though.

The first is what it contains. Bylaws, minutes, financials, contracts, insurance, the depreciation report: these tell you the building's formal state. They don't tell you that the roof contractor was excellent, that unit 304 has flooded twice, or that the last council decided to patch rather than replace and meant to revisit it before winter. That's the operational history, and it isn't in any of those documents because no document was ever designated to hold it.

The second is that a package is a one-time transfer. Nothing keeps it current. So it's worth asking what happens next September, because if the answer is "the next new member requests another package," your building is re-explaining itself to itself once a year, and the operational history is being reconstructed from memory each time, by people who have progressively less of it.

Neither of those is your manager's failing. Nobody was ever given a place to put that kind of information. But you can decide, starting now, that this year's version doesn't evaporate.

When nobody can answer

Here's the part worth preparing for: you will ask several of these questions and get blank looks.

That is normal. It is not a sign that your council is negligent or that your manager is bad at their job. Most of this information was never written down in a form that survives council turnover, because nothing in the Act requires it and nobody ever handed anyone a system for it. Volunteers turn over annually; institutional knowledge doesn't transfer itself. (Strata Council Turnover in BC: Why Buildings Lose History)

The useful response isn't to go hunting through a decade of records to reconstruct the past. It's to make sure this year is different. Starting today, write down what happens: what was repaired and by whom, what was observed but not acted on, what the council decided and why, which contractor did good work. Note deferrals with a trigger: "revisit before winter 2027" rather than just "deferred."

None of that requires special software or a records background. It requires someone deciding that the building's history is worth keeping, and then keeping it.

You're in a good position to be that person, precisely because you're new. You're the one currently noticing how little of this exists. In a year, when you know where everything is, you'll stop noticing, and the next new council member will ask you the same questions you're asking now.

Make sure you have somewhere to point them.

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Frequently asked questions

How long is a strata council member's term in BC? Council is elected annually at the AGM, and the outgoing council's term ends when the new council is elected. Most councils have between three and seven members, as set by the strata's bylaws.

What happens at the first council meeting after the AGM? Under the Standard Bylaws, the new council must elect a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer from among its members at its first meeting following the AGM. Officer titles are assigned by council, not by owners at the AGM.

Can an individual strata council member make decisions on their own? No. A strata council acts collectively. Decisions are made by the council at a properly convened meeting, by majority vote, and recorded in the minutes. No individual member, including the president, has authority to act alone outside that process.

What is the standard of care for a BC strata council member? Section 31 of the Strata Property Act requires council members to act honestly and in good faith with a view to the best interests of the strata corporation, and to exercise the care, diligence and skill of a reasonably prudent person in comparable circumstances. Section 32 addresses conflicts of interest.

What documents should a new strata council member receive? A reasonable onboarding package includes the current bylaws and rules, recent minutes, current financial statements, the strata management contract, the insurance policy, the depreciation report, and a summary of active issues. If your manager doesn't provide one, ask.

Who is responsible for keeping strata records: the council or the property manager? Under section 35 of the Strata Property Act, the strata corporation is responsible for preparing and keeping its records. A council may delegate the work to a property manager, but the legal responsibility remains with the corporation.

Are strata council members personally liable? The Standard Bylaws limit council members' liability where they act honestly and in good faith. Many strata corporations also carry errors and omissions insurance for council members under section 151 of the Strata Property Act. Ask whether yours does.

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This article is general information about BC strata legislation, not legal advice. Confirm specifics for your strata with a qualified professional.