Property Act, privacy regulations must be observed
Tony Gioventu
Province
Dear Condo Smarts: Our strata council passed a rule that it would only receive correspondence through our management company. The rule states that any applications for rentals, hardship applications, requests for alterations, hearings of council, and any related strata business must be addressed only to the strata management company.
As owners, we have been fine with this, except council members themselves don’t abide by the rule, and routinely send out e-mails to owners in the complex regarding bylaw violations and official notices.
We heard that the changes to the Strata Act will permit e-mail as notice, but who does that have to be e-mailed to in order for the e-mail to be valid? What happens if the strata doesn’t provide an address, but the council members e-mail an owner? Can they officially reply back to the council member?
–Karen T, Vernon
Dear Karen: It is easy to understand why a strata corporation wants to maintain only one official address for receipt of notices and sending of notices. If everyone sends their correspondence to council, as well as the strata agent or president, you could end up with eight or more potential mailing addresses and e-mail addresses. It would make it extremely difficult to manage notices of meetings and requests of owners and tenants and agents.
However, the act does permit an owner to leave a notice or request for forms or documents required with a council member by mailing it to the recent address on file in Land Titles for the strata, by putting it through a mail slot or in the mail box used by the strata, by faxing or e-mailing it to a number or e-mail address provided by the strata corporation, or fax number or e-mail address provided by a council member for the purpose of receiving the notice.
An example of the complications of notice often arise when an owner gives a notice of a hardship application to a council member. Under the Strata Property Act, this is deemed to be proper notice, and if the council member ignores the notice and the council does not respond in writing after two weeks of the request, the exemption is automatically allowed.
E-mail is obviously going to become a common method of notice. The strata corporation and council members will only have to officially receive e-mails as notice if their e-mail address functions for the purpose of receiving notice. Likewise, the strata corporation can only send notice to an owner or tenant by e-mail if the owner or tenant has provided an e-mail address for that purpose.
If a strata is considering using e-mail for notices sent and received, it would be a prudent management decision for the councils and managers to create and maintain only one strata-identified e-mail address.
The strata corporation must ensure that the e-mail is checked daily as requests such as a payment or information certificate, or a hardship application, are all time-sensitive.
Council members, owners, tenants and strata agents all need to exercise caution when using e-mail.
Not only do the provisions of the Strata Property Act apply, but also the provisions of the Personal Information Protection Act. Always exercise caution in what you write in an e-mail. You cannot guarantee the security of sensitive or confidential information once you hit the send icon.
The updated changes to the Strata Property Act & Regulations are available on the Internet at bclaws.caor choa.bc.ca.
Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners’ Association. Send questions to him at [email protected].
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