Bylaws and rules

In British Columbia the Strata Property Act supplies a default set of bylaws. Your corporation can (and almost always has) filed replacements at the Land Title Office. The filed version wins.

Ask for: bylaws and rules; alteration guidelines; parking and EV; pets, smoking, rentals and short-term rentals; move-in procedures.

Common property — roofs, fences, shared landscaping, visitor stalls — is usually the corporation’s to maintain. The interior of your lot is usually yours. The registered bylaws can shift that line. Read them before you assume a leak or a fence is “the strata’s problem.”

Noise, construction hours, boulevard trees, parking on public streets, unsightly premises, and waste all sit in city bylaws regardless of what your strata says.

Search current bylaws at bylaws.burnaby.ca. The city also publishes a stratification information guide if you want the municipal view of how lots are created.

Almost every Greentree townhouse will need written council approval before you touch the exterior, plumbing stacks, electrical service, or anything that is common property. Some interior work still needs a Form.

If the city needs a permit (many do, for structural, plumbing, and electrical), you will often have to show strata approval first. 3817 Garden Grove Drive already appears on a city permit record as Lot 64, Plan NWS310 — that is the legal description to reuse.