A long standing patio arrangement may be common practice without having been properly authorized. In Stelzer v. The Owners, Strata Plan VR2699, 2026 BCCRT 1493, owners of a four unit strata disputed their neighbour's exclusive use of a former common area. The Civil Resolution Tribunal found that the earlier informal arrangement had lacked proper legal status, but a later owners' resolution validly changed the designation and didn't amount to significant unfairness.
Oliver Stelzer and Julie Strilesky owned a unit that already had a basement patio and a ground floor porch assigned as limited common property. The neighbour in unit 1 had been using a larger grassy area outside that unit as though it were reserved to them. The original strata plan, however, assigned that neighbour only a much smaller porch. The applicants complained that the informally occupied area still belonged to everyone. They asked for shared access or, alternatively, a more equitable allocation, permission for restricted short term rentals, or $65,000 in compensation.
The Tribunal accepted that the space in front of unit 1 hadn't originally been limited common property. Ordinarily a resolution at an annual or special general meeting was needed under sections 73 and 74 of the Strata Property Act. After the dispute began, the strata held a special meeting in July 2025. A resolution reallocating specified outdoor areas passed with the required three quarter majority, and the strata filed the resolution and sketch plan at the land title office in September. Nothing prevented the strata from taking that lawful step during an ongoing Tribunal dispute. The later filing meant the earlier informal exclusive use no longer justified an order for a fresh vote.
The applicants argued that the new layout unfairly favoured unit 1 and that their lack of voting power in such a small strata compounded the problem. The measured patio allocations told a more nuanced story. Their unit's limited patio area had increased from 26.83 to 30.33 square metres and remained the largest. Unit 1 grew from 10.65 to 26.6 square metres but still had the smallest allocation. No evidence established the claimed financial benefit of the change or why the applicants reasonably expected to use their neighbour's front area. Under the significant unfairness test, losing a legitimate majority vote was not enough.
The Tribunal rejected the fairness claim, the $65,000 demand and the proposed short term rental compromise, for which the applicants hadn't obtained strata authorization. It also dismissed their Tribunal fee request. The decision doesn't mean that any supermajority may strip an owner of legitimate property rights, or that an improper informal allocation is lawful before formalization. It illustrates the importance of a properly passed and filed resolution and of actual evidence showing an inequitable impact when a minority owner challenges a shared property decision.