Owner Privacy & PIPA in BC Stratas

Self-managed strata councils sit on a surprising amount of personal information: names, addresses, phone numbers, email lists, arrears balances, insurance claim details, complaint files, parking assignments and contractor quotes tied to a specific unit. Two sets of rules apply to that data at the same time — the Strata Property Act, which sometimes requires disclosure, and BC's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which limits collection, use and disclosure. Getting the interaction right is the whole job.

Does PIPA apply to a BC strata corporation?

PIPA governs "organizations" in British Columbia, and the BC Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has treated strata corporations as organizations subject to it. In broad terms, PIPA requires an organization to:

• collect, use and disclose personal information only for purposes a reasonable person would consider appropriate;
• obtain consent, unless the collection, use or disclosure is required or authorized by another law;
• make reasonable security arrangements to protect the information it holds; and
• respond to an individual's request for access to their own personal information.

That "required or authorized by law" carve-out is why the Strata Property Act matters so much here. Where the Act tells the strata to hand something over, PIPA is generally not the obstacle. Where the Act is silent, consent and reasonableness come back into play.

Disclosure the Strata Property Act requires

Records requests (s.36). On request, the strata must make its s.35 records available and provide copies to an owner, to a tenant who has been assigned that right, or to a person either of them authorises in writing. Former owners and former tenants may request records relating to their period of ownership or tenancy. The strata must comply within 2 weeks, except a request for the bylaws or rules, which must be met within one week; a copying fee capped by the Regulation may be charged. See Part 4 of the Act.

Information Certificates (Form B, s.59). Within one week of a request by an owner, a purchaser, or a person authorised by an owner or purchaser, the strata must give a Form B for the strata lot in question. It discloses that lot's monthly strata fees, any amount the owner owes the strata, alteration-responsibility agreements, approved-but-unpaid special levy amounts, CRF balance, unfiled bylaw amendments, litigation and CRT proceedings, outstanding work orders, parking and locker allocation, and a summary of insurance coverage (s.59). The maximum fee is $35 plus reproduction costs up to 25 cents per page (Regulation s.4.4).

The only three required attachments under s.59(4) are the rules, the current budget, and the most recent depreciation report, if any, obtained under s.94 — see our guide to BC depreciation report requirements. The Rental Disclosure Statement was repealed from the form and is not a required attachment. Conditional attachments apply where the answer is yes, including unfiled bylaw amendments, unfiled resolutions, notices of resolutions not yet voted on, work orders, parking documents and any electrical planning report obtained under s.94.1 (Form B).

Note what is not on that list: bylaws, minutes and financial statements are not Form B attachments — they are separate s.36 records requests.

Questions councils actually ask

Can we post an arrears list in the lobby? Publishing a named list of who owes money is not something the Act requires, and it discloses financial information about identifiable individuals to people with no statutory entitlement to it. The safer practice is to report arrears in aggregate to owners and deal with the individual account directly with that owner. Enforcement has its own procedure: before imposing a fine or charging the cost of remedying a contravention, s.135 requires written particulars of the complaint to the owner or tenant, a reasonable opportunity to respond including a hearing if requested, and written notice of the decision as soon as feasible (Part 7).

Can an owner get another owner's address? The Act requires the strata to keep a list of owners as part of its s.35 records, and s.36 gives owners a right of access to s.35 records — so the Act contemplates that disclosure. What a requester may then lawfully do with the list is governed by other law, and a disputed case is one to put to a strata lawyer.

Do we need names in the minutes? The Act does not require council minutes to identify individual owners in connection with complaints or arrears. Many stratas record the decision without naming the person. Check your own registered bylaws, which may address minute content.

Can we email notices to everyone at once? Yes — but use BCC. Disclosing every owner's email address to every other owner is an avoidable disclosure. Remember that notice given by email, mail or fax is conclusively deemed received 4 days after it is sent (s.61(3)), so an emailed general-meeting notice must go out 18 days before the meeting to satisfy the 2-week minimum in s.45 (Part 4).

Collect only what the task requires

Statutory forms are a good model. For an EV charging request, the Regulation prescribes exactly what the owner must provide: contact information and strata lot number, a description and proposed location of the infrastructure, the parking stall, the qualified contractor's name and contact information, and that contractor's description and cost/time estimate (Regulation s.5.3). That is the scope of the file — a council does not need an owner's credit history or a copy of their mortgage to process it.

Retention: minimums, not "forever"

Regulation s.4.1 sets five different retention periods, and one of them is "current copy only":

• Permanently: the registered strata plan and amendments; resolutions dealing with changes to common property including LCP designation; arbitrator, court and CRT decisions in proceedings the strata was party to and legal opinions it obtained; depreciation reports; electrical planning reports; EV charging infrastructure reports.
• Until disposal or replacement: reports on repair or maintenance of major items.
• At least 6 years: minutes of general and council meetings; books of account; budgets and financial statements; income tax returns; bank statements, cancelled cheques and certificates of deposit; Information Certificates; waivers and consents under ss.41, 44 and 45.
• At least 6 years after it ends: written contracts, including insurance policies.
• At least 2 years: correspondence.
• Current copy only: the bylaws and rules, the Act and regulations, the council list and the owner list.

See the Strata Property Regulation. Minutes and financials are not "kept indefinitely" as a statutory requirement — they are six-year minimums, and the bylaws are not on a keep-forever rule at all. Keeping a decade of complaint correspondence in a shared inbox is a privacy risk, not compliance. Missing a statutory report is a different problem entirely — see what happens if your strata misses the depreciation report deadline.

Practical safeguards for self-managed councils

• Keep strata records in one controlled place rather than on individual councillors' personal devices, and remove access when a term ends. Purpose-built tools like ManageStrata help keep the record set and access log in one system.
• Use role-based access: not every councillor needs the arrears ledger.
• Redact unrelated third-party personal information before releasing a record.
• Log records requests and the date you responded, so the one-week and two-week clocks are provable.
• Buyers and owners reviewing a large document package can use tools such as SearchStrata for AI-assisted analysis of strata documents — useful for spotting what a Form B and minutes actually say before an offer firms up.

Also worth knowing: in suits against the strata corporation, the strata may join as a party the owner whose act or omission gave rise to the claim (s.168) — one reason councils should document incidents carefully while still limiting who sees the file.

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.