When Email and Text Threads Become Strata Records

Most strata business now happens in a thread. A council member texts the group about a leak, three people reply, someone says "go ahead," and a contractor is hired. Nobody opened a minute book. But the decision still happened — and the paper trail now lives on five phones.

That raises a practical question for every self-managed council and every council working alongside a manager: when do email and text threads become strata records, and what has to be kept?

The Act doesn't ask what app you used

The Strata Property Act and the Strata Property Regulation define records by what they are, not by the medium they sit in. The Regulation sets several different retention minimums rather than one blanket rule — for example, minutes of general and council meetings, books of account, budgets and financial statements must be kept at least 6 years, while correspondence must be kept at least 2 years. Some records, like the registered strata plan, depreciation reports and electrical planning reports, are kept permanently; others, like the bylaws and the owner list, only need to be kept as a current copy. The full list is in the Strata Property Regulation.

Nothing in that list says correspondence has to be on letterhead. An email from an owner complaining about noise is correspondence. A letter the council sends giving written particulars of a complaint is correspondence. Whether a casual group text qualifies has not been settled by a blanket rule, and it will depend on the content — a thread in which council deliberates and decides something looks very different from "who's bringing coffee." The safer working assumption: if it records strata business, treat it as a record.

Email can also be formal notice

Section 63 of the Act lets a notice, record or document be given to the strata corporation by emailing it to the strata's email address, or to an email address a council member provided for that purpose — and that notice is conclusively deemed given 4 days after it is emailed (Part 4, s.63). So an owner's email to a council member's inbox can start a clock the council didn't realize was running.

That matters most where the Act imposes deadlines. A written request for a hearing under s.34.1 obliges council to hold a meeting within 4 weeks, and — where the purpose is to seek a decision — to give a written decision within one week of the hearing. If that request is sitting unread in a personal Gmail account, the deadline runs anyway.

When a text thread becomes a decision

Under the Standard Bylaws, council decisions are made by a majority of council members present at the meeting, and the results of all votes must be recorded in the council meeting minutes (bylaw 18). Council meetings may be held by electronic means so long as everyone can communicate with each other, and members attending that way are deemed present in person (bylaw 17). A council member can call a meeting on at least one week's notice, which does not have to be in writing, with shorter notice available by consent or for an emergency (bylaw 14). All of that is in the Schedule of Standard Bylaws — check your own registered bylaws, which may differ.

A scattered email thread is not a meeting under that structure. The fix isn't to ban email; it's to ratify. Bring the thread to the next properly held meeting, make the decision there, and minute the vote. Our guide to document management for self-managed stratas walks through how to organize what comes out the other end.

Questions councils actually ask

Q: Can an owner request our council's emails?
Under s.36 the corporation must make s.35 records available and provide copies on request to an owner, a tenant assigned that right, or someone either authorises in writing, within 2 weeks — except bylaws and rules, which are one week (Part 4). What is disclosable is the record, not every private message a council member ever sent; whether a given email falls inside the s.35 categories can be a genuine question, and a contested one is worth legal advice.

Q: Do we have to keep texts forever?
No. There is no "keep everything indefinitely" rule — the Regulation's periods are minimums by category, and correspondence sits at a 2-year minimum.

Q: Can a bylaw fine be issued over text?
Section 135 requires written particulars of the complaint, a reasonable opportunity to answer including a hearing if requested, and written notice of the decision as soon as feasible (Part 7, s.135). "Written" is the operative word; a fine imposed without those steps is void.

Practical habits that hold up

• Use one strata email address, not personal inboxes, so records survive a council turnover.
• Minute decisions, even ones that began in a thread.
• Keep enforcement correspondence in a file per strata lot.
• Give owners a single channel to submit requests — an owner portal does this better than a group chat.
• Remember PIPA: owner contact details and complaint records are personal information, collected and used for the strata's purposes only.

This is the core idea behind ManageStrata: the management company can change, but the strata's knowledge shouldn't — the documents, minutes, votes and books belong to the corporation. For digging through years of accumulated PDFs, SearchStrata offers AI analysis of strata documents, and we've written separately on how AI helps self-managed councils.

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.