Setting Up a Strata Email Account: A Practical Guide for BC Councils

The new management company starts on the first of the month. The handover goes about as well as these things can. Within four weeks the previous firm returns the strata's records, as the Act requires. Then the emails keep arriving at the old manager's address. Owners have it saved. Contractors have it on their invoices. The insurance broker has it on file. For months, the strata's front door is an inbox that belongs to a company it no longer works with.

We wrote earlier about what happens when strata business lives in personal inboxes. Many councils reach the same conclusion: the strata needs an address of its own. This post is about what comes next. How do you set one up so it actually works?

What the Act expects

Section 35(2)(k) of the Strata Property Act requires the strata corporation to keep "correspondence sent or received by the strata corporation and council," and the Regulation requires that correspondence be kept for at least two years. Section 36 lets owners request access. The duty sits with the corporation, even when the work is delegated to a manager.

Two details matter for email specifically. The Civil Resolution Tribunal has treated emails between the strata manager and council as correspondence the strata must keep (Hamilton v. The Owners, Strata Plan NWS 1018, 2017 BCCRT 141). Emails exchanged only among council members generally are not (Kayne v. The Owners, Strata Plan LMS 2374, 2007 BCSC 1610). And under s. 37, a departing manager must return the strata's records within four weeks or pay the strata a penalty, which the Province lists as $1,000.

The Act does not require a dedicated address. It simply makes one very practical.

Setting it up

Own the account, not just the address. Register it in the strata's name. If the strata owns a domain, use it. If not, a free account named after your strata plan number, such as strata1234@gmail.com, works well. Either way, keep the login and recovery details in council's records rather than on one person's phone.

Use roles, not names. If you need more than one address, name them by role rather than by person. With your own domain, that might be president@ and treasurer@. With free accounts, each role needs its own account, such as strata1234.treasurer@gmail.com. When the treasurer changes, the address and its history stay with the role.

Rotate access at every AGM. Change passwords when council changes and note the handover in the minutes. Turn on two-step verification, and update the recovery phone and email whenever the person holding them leaves council.

Working with your property manager

Many councils already have a manager whose company address is where owners send everything. A strata account doesn't replace that relationship. The question is how the two addresses work together. There are three common setups.

1. The strata address is the front door. Owners write to the strata address, and the manager reads and replies from it using Gmail's delegation feature, with no shared password. The manager needs a Google account for this, and messages they send show that they were sent by the manager. Council keeps ownership and removes access when the contract ends. This is the cleanest option, because every conversation stays in one inbox the strata controls.

2. The manager's address stays primary. Owners keep writing to the manager, who copies the strata address on everything or sets up automatic forwarding. It's the easiest place to start, but it depends on the manager doing it consistently.

3. The strata address forwards to the manager. Messages arrive at the strata address and pass straight to the manager's inbox. It's simple, but replies go out from the manager's account, so each conversation ends up split across two inboxes.

Who manages it? Council owns the account, and one member, such as the president or secretary, holds the login and recovery details. The manager handles day-to-day replies as a service, and the management contract should say so. Some management companies prefer to work in their own systems, so start with a conversation. Option 2 is an easy first step, and option 1 is the one to work toward.

Running it day to day

Publish one address. Put it on notices, the website, and the information package for new owners. When an owner writes to a council member's personal account, reply with a request to resend it to the official address.

Give owners a direct line to council. Set up a council-only address alongside the general one. An owner with a complaint about management can reach council without the complaint landing in the manager's inbox first. This is the one address the manager should not have access to. Keep in mind that this changes who reads the complaint first. It doesn't make the complaint private (see below).

Write as if owners will read it. Strata corporations must comply with PIPA, so limit account access to the people who need it. But correspondence is a strata record, and under s. 36 owners can request copies. The tribunal has generally not allowed stratas to redact correspondence, including complaint letters, for privacy reasons. Stay on topic, keep the tone professional, and don't promise anyone more confidentiality than the law allows.

Keep decisions in meetings. An inbox is a place to receive and discuss information. Formal decisions should still be made at council meetings and recorded in the minutes.

What an inbox still can't do

A dedicated account solves ownership. As we noted in our earlier post, it doesn't solve organization. Two years on, the thread about the parkade membrane is still one message among thousands.

Pleno's Gmail add-on works well with this kind of account. The add-on is installed separately on each Gmail account you want to use it with, so if your strata has role accounts, each one needs its own install. Once it's installed on the strata's account, anyone signed in to that account can turn a thread into a card in the Maintenance section, linked back to the original message. The add-on runs inside Gmail, so it works best when the strata inbox is where the work happens, as in the first two setups above. Mail forwarded to another email program can't use it there. Because each link points to an account the corporation owns, it keeps working for whoever holds access: when the treasurer changes, when the management company changes, and when nobody on council remembers the thread existed.

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Sources

Legislation and government guidance

• Strata Property Act, SBC 1998, c. 43: s. 35 (records), s. 36 (access to records), s. 37 (strata manager to return records)
• Strata Property Regulation, BC Reg 43/2000: s. 4.1 (retention periods)
• Province of British Columbia: Information and record keeping in stratas: two-year correspondence retention; four-week return of records and $1,000 penalty
• Land Title Practice Manual: s. 37, Strata Manager to Return Records

Decisions

• Hamilton v. The Owners, Strata Plan NWS 1018, 2017 BCCRT 141: manager and council emails as correspondence
• Kayne v. The Owners, Strata Plan LMS 2374, 2007 BCSC 1610: emails among council members
• Cleveland Doan LLP: "Correspondence" under s. 35 of the Strata Property Act: summary of both decisions, and of CRT decisions on disclosing complaints

Industry and association guidance

• Vancouver Island Strata Owners Association: What records must the strata keep?: dedicated strata email address
• Vancouver Island Strata Owners Association: A guide to privacy in stratas: PIPA, and why stratas generally can't redact records requested under s. 36
• CHOA: Record keeping, Strata Property Act ss. 35 and 36: text of s. 35(2)(k) and two-year retention
• Google: Delegate and collaborate on email: Gmail delegation
• FirstService Residential: Email best practices for strata council members: role-based addresses and redirecting personal emails
• CHOA: "Is Your Strata Emailing Secrets?" by Tony Gioventu: email confidentiality

This article is general information, not legal advice. For questions about your strata's specific obligations, speak with a strata lawyer.