When Owners Harass Council: Protecting Volunteers in a BC Strata

Council members are volunteers. They are owners, individuals representing corporate owners, or tenants who have been assigned the landlord's right to stand for council — that is the whole eligible pool under s.28 of the Strata Property Act, unless the strata has passed a bylaw after its first annual general meeting allowing other classes of persons to serve. When one owner's emails, doorstep confrontations or meeting outbursts become relentless, people quit, nobody runs, and governance stalls.

The Act does not contain a section called "harassment." What it does contain is a set of procedural tools that, used properly, move a conflict out of a volunteer's personal inbox and into a documented process.

Control the meeting, not the person

Under Standard Bylaw 17, owners may attend council meetings as observers. Two things follow:

• Observers observe. The Standard Bylaws give them attendance, not a right to speak, debate or participate.
• Observers must be excluded from the portions of a council meeting dealing with a bylaw contravention hearing under s.135, and from any other matters where, in the council's opinion, the presence of observers would unreasonably interfere with an individual's privacy.

Bylaw 17 also lets council meet by electronic means at its option, so long as all council members and other participants can communicate with each other, and deems members present in person when it does. Note that Standard Bylaw 16 addresses quorum separately and speaks of members being present in person to be counted. If your strata has replaced the Standard Bylaws with its own, read your registered version — these provisions are frequently amended.

Council can also use Standard Bylaw 20 to delegate powers and duties, including to a person who is not a council member. In practice, routing all correspondence from one high-conflict owner through a single designated contact or the property manager is a delegation decision, not a punishment.

Give the grievance a legitimate channel

Many escalations are really a person who feels unheard. Section 34.1 gives them a formal route: by written application stating the reason, an owner or tenant may request a hearing at a council meeting. Council must hold that meeting within 4 weeks of the request, and if the purpose is to seek a decision, must give a written decision within one week after the hearing.

Pointing an angry owner to s.34.1 is not capitulation. It sets a format, a date and a written outcome — and it creates a record. What it does not create is an appeal right: there is no statutory right to re-argue a council decision at an AGM or SGM. From there, the routes are the Civil Resolution Tribunal or the courts.

Questions councils actually ask

Can we fine an owner for abusing council members?
Only if the conduct contravenes a bylaw or rule your strata has actually registered, and only after the full procedure in s.135: a complaint received, the particulars given to the owner or tenant in writing, a reasonable opportunity to answer including a hearing if requested, notice to the landlord and owner if the person is a tenant, and written notice of the decision as soon as feasible. Skip a step and the fine is void. Once council has complied for a contravention, s.135(3) allows fines for a continuing contravention of that same bylaw without repeating the process.

Can we register a lien for unpaid harassment fines?
No. Section 116 does not permit a Certificate of Lien where the amount owing is a fine or the costs of remedying a contravention. Fines are collected as a debt, not through the lien priority given to strata fees and special levies.

What if the person being complained about is on council?
Section 136 says that council member must not participate in the s.135 decision about the complaint — unless all the owners are on the council.

Can owners overturn an enforcement decision at a general meeting?
Owners may direct or restrict council by majority vote at an annual or special general meeting, but s.27 bars any direction that is contrary to the Act, regulations or bylaws, or that interferes with council's discretion to determine, on the facts of a case, whether a bylaw was contravened, whether to fine and in what amount, whether to deny access to a recreational facility, or whether to require payment of the reasonable costs of remedying a contravention under s.133(2).

Respectful conduct bylaws: what they can and can't do

Many BC stratas have adopted a respectful conduct or anti-harassment bylaw. Nothing in the Act requires one, and whether yours has one is a question about your registered bylaws, not the Standard Bylaws. If you are drafting one:

• Conduct toward volunteers generally belongs in a bylaw, not a rule — rules deal with the use, safety and condition of common property and common assets. See Strata Bylaws vs Rules in BC.
• Describe observable conduct (threats, repeated contact after being asked to use a single channel, abuse at meetings) rather than vague words like "disrespect," which are hard to enforce before the CRT.
• A bylaw amendment is approved by a 3/4 vote — at least 3/4 of the votes cast by eligible voters present in person or by proxy who have not abstained, per the definition in s.1 — and has no effect until it is filed in the Land Title Office (s.128(2)). Owners and tenants must be informed as soon as feasible after approval.

If your strata employs staff or engages contractors, separate workplace legislation may also apply — worth a question to a BC strata lawyer rather than an assumption.

Document everything, and keep it with the corporation

Enforcement that survives a CRT review is enforcement that was written down. Minute the complaint, the s.135 particulars sent, the response received, and the decision. The Strata Property Regulation sets minimum retention periods — at least two years for correspondence and at least six years for minutes — so a council member's personal email account is the wrong place for any of it. Keeping the trail with the strata corporation is exactly the premise behind ManageStrata: councils and managers change, but the minutes, votes and books belong to the corporation. If you are trying to work out whether your registered documents already contain a conduct provision, tools like SearchStrata can analyse a bylaw package and surface what is actually in it.

For the mechanics of recording decisions properly, see How to Prepare AGM Minutes in BC, and for councils carrying this load without a manager, How to Self-Manage a Strata in BC.

This article is general information about BC strata law, not legal advice; verify against the current Strata Property Act and Regulation or consult a BC strata lawyer.