Depreciation report

A depreciation report is a professional assessment of your building's major components — roof, elevators, plumbing, envelope, parkade membrane — with an estimate of what each will cost to replace, when, and what you should be putting aside to pay for it.

It is the single most consequential document a strata corporation owns. It drives your reserve contributions, your fee increases, and the answer to "is there a levy coming?" that every buyer asks.

What BC requires

If you are in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley or the Capital Regional District without a current report, you are overdue — engage a provider now. Everywhere else in BC, you have until July 1, 2027.

Set your region under SettingsComplianceRegional district. The same setting phases the electrical planning report, so both deadlines follow from one answer.

Until you set it, ManageStrata shows the later deadline rather than reporting a breach that may not be yours. That is only a safe guess while the earlier deadline is still ahead, and it no longer is: with no report on file and no region set, the item shows amber, not green, names the regional deadline that has already passed, and points you to the setting. Setting the region replaces the guess with your actual date — red, if the earlier deadline is yours.

Three practical consequences:

Lead time is the problem, not the deadline. Qualified providers in BC are heavily booked around these deadlines. Engaging one three months out is late.

A current report lowers your voting threshold. CRF spending on repair, maintenance or replacement that the most current depreciation report recommends can be approved by a majority vote rather than a 3/4 vote (s.96(b)). That is a recurring, concrete return on the cost of the report. See budgets.

The rules around the contingency reserve fund changed with it. The report is not a filing exercise — it feeds directly into how much you must be contributing. See contingency reserve fund.

The electrical planning report

BC also requires corporations of 5 or more lots to obtain an electrical planning report (EV-readiness). It is phased by regional district in the same way as the depreciation report — Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the Capital Regional District first, the rest of BC later — and ManageStrata reads it off the same Regional district setting. The calendar item names the region its date came from.

With no region set, it shows the later of the two dates and says that it's the latest in BC, with the setting that gives you your own. Record the report from the calendar item once you have it.

Other provinces

Alberta — a reserve fund study, refreshed at least every five years under the Condominium Property Act, with an adopted funding plan.

Ontario — a reserve fund study on a three-year cycle with a thirty-year funding plan under the Condominium Act, 1998.

Set your province when you register the corporation and the calendar tracks the right one.

The countdown

Once your corporation is registered, the item appears on your compliance calendar automatically, counting down. It goes amber early — deliberately, because the work takes months.

Owners see the status too, on their read-only compliance page.

Getting one done

1. Engage a qualified provider

   In BC the Act sets out who may prepare a report. Ask for references from strata corporations of your size and construction type, and get more than one quote — figures vary widely.

2. Give them what they need

   Providers ask for the strata plan, the last few years of financial statements, any prior depreciation report, records of past major work, and access to the building. If it's all in your document library this is a short email rather than a week of hunting.

3. Receive and read the report

   You'll get a component inventory, a condition assessment, and funding models — usually several, each showing a different contribution level and the reserve balance it produces over 30 years.

4. Put it to the owners

   The report and the funding model you intend to follow belong in front of the ownership. See running a meeting.

5. Record it in ManageStrata

   Below.

Recording the report

Click through from the depreciation report item on the compliance calendar and use Record report. Enter the report date (the date of the report, not today), optionally the next update date and who prepared it, and attach the report from your document library. Recording it does three things at once:

1. The compliance item turns green, and the next deadline is set five years out.
2. The report is attached from your document library, where it's searchable and quotable with page citations.
3. You can seed your component list from it — see below.

The calendar is where a new report goes. Each one it records is filed alongside the earlier ones — the panel shows what's already on file and says so — so the history of your reports survives.

Correcting the one on file

To fix a mistake in the report you already have — a mistyped date, a missing provider — use Assets & reserve studyRecord its detailsUpdate details. That drawer edits the current report in place; it does not add another. A new report five years on still goes through the compliance calendar, as above.

Using the numbers

A report that sits in a drawer has cost you money and bought you nothing. Three things to do with it:

Compare the recommended contribution to what you actually contribute. The budget prints the study-based recommendation beside the reserve line you're setting, with any shortfall in dollars, and the compliance calendar scores your adopted budget against it. A large gap is the finding — the sooner owners see it, the smaller the eventual levy.

Plan the near-term items. Anything due in the next three to five years should appear in your budget or in a planned special levy, not as a surprise.

Tell owners honestly. Owners forgive a well-explained increase far more readily than a sudden levy. The report is your evidence.

Common questions

We're a 6-lot building — is this really for us? Yes. In BC the requirement starts at 5 lots. Your report will be simpler and cheaper than a tower's, but the obligation is the same.

Can we skip it if owners vote to? No. The 3/4-vote waiver was removed outright in the 2024 amendments — it wasn't narrowed, it no longer exists. There is no waiver, and a waiver resolution passed in the past does not carry forward.

Ours is from 2019 — is that current? On a five-year cycle it needs renewing. Record the 2019 report's date in ManageStrata and the calendar will tell you exactly where you stand.

What if we miss the deadline? Get it done. Beyond the statutory exposure, an out-of-date report shows on every Form B you issue, and buyers and their lenders notice.