Strata Form B’s… know what you’re getting into!
The Form B has gone through a continual evolution throughout it’s life, disclosing important information about the current status of strata units in any given development.
The most recent update to the form is of supreme importance to understand the nature of control afforded to the Strata unit holder of parking stalls and storage lockers. It is now mandatory, as of January 1, 2014, for Strata Corporations to disclose how parking and storage lockers are allocated to strata lots on the new Form B. Now this may seem to be an obvious disclosure, but believe me, this simple disclosures’ history has proven anything but ‘obvious’.
Many legal battles have been fought over the perceived rights of use for these strata items. Let me take a moment to give an example:
“The recent decision of Blackall v. Jarrold et al.3 concerned a dispute over parking. In Blackall, the buyers of a strata unit sued the sellers for negligently misrepresenting the number of parking stalls included in the sale. The Property Disclosure Statement stated that “parking stalls 598 and 601 are included in the purchase price along with storage locker 291, all of which will be assigned by the buyer on completion date.” Both the buyers and the sellers believed that the parking stalls were designated as limited common property (LCP), and thus for the sellers’ exclusive use.
In fact, only one of the stalls was designated LCP. While the original purchasers of the strata lot had paid the developer $5,350 for the use of the second parking stall at the time of their purchase, neither they nor the developer took steps to amend the strata plan. Thus the second parking stall, as common property, remained under the control of the strata corporation.”
In this circumstance the court decided that the Buyer, and their representative had not fulfilled their due diligence by reviewing the available strata plans which in this case would have designated only the one parking stall as limited common property for their exclusive use.
Although the Seller was not forced to pay any damages in this case, surely, one can see the damage done to the Buyer by this negligence. If you and your partner each had a car you would now be forced to rent a stall from the strata corporation for that second vehicle. Although likely a minor expense in some areas (South Okanagan) it could be a major problem if you lived in Vancouver where parking stalls can run at a premium. If downtown, you could be looking at an extra $200 a month. Not an immaterial difference if you expect to live there for say 5 years, thats an extra $12,000 in expense, just for parking!
Here is an example Form B for referencing these much needed additions. The devil’s always in the details… Example Form B