A Strata Council Meeting Minutes Template

Council minutes are the strata corporation's memory. They are what a future council, a buyer's conveyancer, an insurer, or the Civil Resolution Tribunal will read years from now to understand why a decision was made. A clean, consistent strata council meeting minutes template takes the guesswork out of that — and keeps your minutes focused on decisions rather than discussion.

Here is a template you can adapt, plus the handful of recording rules that actually come from legislation rather than habit.

What BC law requires you to record

Surprisingly little is prescribed, which is why practice varies so widely between strata corporations.

• Vote results must be recorded. Under the Standard Bylaws, decisions at council meetings are made by a majority of council members present in person at the meeting, and the results of all votes at a council meeting must be recorded in the council meeting minutes (Standard Bylaw 18). Unless there are only two strata lots, the president may break a tie with a second, deciding vote — if that happens, say so in the minutes.
• Minutes are a strata record with a retention period. The Strata Property Regulation sets several different retention periods, and minutes of council and general meetings must be kept for at least 6 years (Regulation s.4.1). Minutes are not a "keep forever as a legal requirement" record, but many strata corporations keep them longer by choice.
• Owners can request them. On request, the strata corporation must make its records available and provide copies, generally within 2 weeks (Strata Property Act s.36). Assume every set of minutes will eventually be read by someone outside the council.

Whether your council must circulate minutes to all owners, and how quickly, depends on your strata's own registered bylaws. The Standard Bylaws do not set a circulation deadline for council minutes — they do require the council to inform owners about a council meeting as soon as feasible after it has been called (Standard Bylaw 14). Check your filed bylaws before promising owners a timeline.

The template

Strata Plan [number] — Strata Council Meeting Minutes

1. Meeting details

• Date, start time, and location — or the electronic platform used. Council meetings may be held by electronic means so long as all council members and other participants can communicate with each other, and participants are then deemed present in person (Standard Bylaw 17).

2. Attendance and quorum

• Council members present (note which attended electronically), members absent with or without regrets, and any property manager or guests.
• A line confirming quorum. Quorum depends on council size under Standard Bylaw 16 — for example, 3 where council has 5 or 6 members — unless your bylaws say otherwise.
• Note any owners attending as observers. Observers may attend council meetings, but not the portions dealing with bylaw contravention hearings under s.135 of the Act, or other matters where their presence would unreasonably interfere with an individual's privacy (Standard Bylaw 17).

3. Approval of previous minutes — moved, seconded, carried (or carried with the noted correction).

4. Financial report — balances in the operating fund and contingency reserve fund, arrears summary without naming owners, and any approved expenditures with the authority relied on.

5. Correspondence — logged by date and subject, with the action taken.

6. Maintenance and ongoing business — one line per item: status, decision, who is responsible, target date.

7. New business — each motion recorded with its outcome.

8. Bylaw enforcement and hearings — record that a matter was dealt with and the decision reached, using strata lot numbers rather than names where possible. If an owner or tenant requested a hearing, note it: under s.34.1 the council must hold a meeting to hear the applicant within 4 weeks of the written request, and if the purpose was to seek a decision, must give a written decision within one week after the hearing. Fines and cost-recovery decisions also require the full written-particulars, opportunity-to-answer and written-notice process in s.135.

9. Council changes — if a member resigned or has been unable to act for two or more months and the remaining members appointed a replacement, record the appointment and that it runs for the remainder of the term (Standard Bylaw 12).

10. Next meeting and adjournment time.

Council minutes vs. AGM minutes: questions councils ask

Do council minutes have to record who voted which way?
The Standard Bylaws require the results of all votes to be recorded, not a member-by-member tally (Standard Bylaw 18). Many councils record the result only; some record a dissent at a member's request. Either is consistent with the bylaw.

Can we keep a confidential set of minutes?
There is no "in camera minutes" category in the Act. The practical approach most councils use is to record enforcement and personnel matters briefly and without identifying details, since minutes are a requestable record under s.36. Legal opinions and tribunal decisions are separate records with their own permanent retention requirement under Regulation s.4.1.

Are council minutes the same as general meeting minutes?
No. General meetings have their own notice, chairing and voting rules — see How to Prepare AGM Minutes in BC for that side of the job. Note too that removing a council member happens at an annual or special general meeting by majority vote (Standard Bylaw 11), not at a council meeting.

Keeping minutes usable, not just compliant

Minutes earn their keep when someone can find the decision three years later. A few habits help:

• Use a consistent heading structure so items are searchable.
• State the authority for each decision — council approval in writing, a budgeted operating expense, or a resolution owners already passed.
• Avoid summarizing debate. Record what was decided.
• Distinguish bylaw matters from rule matters; the enforcement and amendment paths differ, as explained in Strata Bylaws vs Rules in BC.

If your archive is a decade of scanned PDFs, tools like SearchStrata can run AI analysis across strata documents to surface where a decision was actually recorded. And because the management company can change while the corporation's knowledge should not, ManageStrata is built around the idea that the minutes, votes and books belong to the strata corporation and stay with it when a manager or council changes — whether you are self-managing or working alongside a property manager.

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.