What a Form B Tells You Before You Buy a BC Condo, and What It Leaves Out

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Almost everyone calls the Form B “the strata documents”. It is not. The Form B: Information Certificate is a single two-page form the strata corporation fills in about one strata lot, on one day, and only three documents have to come stapled to it.

The second thing people get wrong is age. A Form B does not expire, and the Act never says how long one stays good for. It speaks only as of the date written on it, which is a different and much shorter answer.

This page sets out what the form must tell you, what it is silent about, what it may cost, what nobody is allowed to charge you, and what happens when the numbers on it turn out to be wrong. Every figure here comes from the Strata Property Act, the Strata Property Regulation or a decided tribunal case, each one opened and read on 11 October 2026.

What a Form B is, and who may demand one

A Form B is a certificate the strata corporation signs about one strata lot. Its own opening words are that the information “is correct as of the date of this certificate”.

You do not need the seller’s permission to ask for one. Section 59 (1) of the Strata Property Act requires the strata corporation to give an Information Certificate “within one week of a request by an owner, a purchaser or a person authorized by an owner or purchaser”.

That word “purchaser” matters, because it appears in section 59 and nowhere in section 36, which is the section that opens the strata’s records. Section 36 (1) lists an owner, a tenant who has been assigned the right, and a person authorised in writing by one of them. Section 36 (1.1) adds former owners and former tenants. A purchaser is not in any of those lists.

So the Act hands a buyer a certificate and stops. Minutes, financial statements, contracts and engineering reports reach you because the seller asks for them, or authorises you in writing to ask, not because you are buying.

Who may demand what, how fast, and for how much

What you are asking for	Who may ask	The deadline	Maximum charge
Form B: Information Certificate	An owner, a purchaser, or a person either authorises	One week	$35 plus up to 25 cents a page
Strata records: minutes, budgets, financial statements, contracts, depreciation and engineering reports	An owner, an assigned tenant, a person authorised in writing by one of them, a former owner or former tenant	Two weeks	25 cents a page; inspection is free
The bylaws and the rules only	Any of the above, and any tenant	One week	25 cents a page; inspection is free
Form F: Certificate of Payment	An owner, a purchaser, or a person either authorises	One week	$15
A buyer asking the strata office directly for the minutes or the financial statements	Nobody. This route does not exist in the Act.	—	—

What actually arrives attached

Three documents are attached because the Act orders it. A fourth is attached because the prescribed form orders it. Several more are attached only if the strata ticks “yes” to a question.

Section 59 (4) is short and closed. It says “Copies of all of the following must be attached to the certificate”, and then lists the rules, the current budget, a paragraph that was repealed in 2022, and “the most recent depreciation report, if any, obtained by the strata corporation under section 94“.

You will still read, on good pages, that four documents must be attached. That is correct in substance and wrong about the authority. The electrical planning report copy is required by item (p) of the form itself, under the catch-all in section 59 (3) (m), which picks up “any other information required by the regulations”.

The distinction is not academic. It is why the BC Financial Services Authority’s own Form B page, published in March 2023, still lists only the three. The form changed after it. The current Form B carries the amendment note “[am. B.C. Regs. 238/2011, Schs. 2 and 3; 172/2016, s. (b); 206/2016, Sch. 1, s. 1; 6/2023, s. 6; 7/2023, Sch. 1; 261/2023, App., s. 3.]”

What comes attached to a Form B, and why

Document	Attached because	Always, or only sometimes
The rules of the strata corporation	Act section 59 (4) (a)	Always, if the building has rules
The current budget	Act section 59 (4) (b)	Always
The most recent depreciation report	Act section 59 (4) (d)	Only “if any” — a building without one attaches nothing
Every electrical planning report	Form B item (p), under Act section 59 (3) (m)	Only if the strata has obtained one
Alteration agreements that put a repair bill on the owner	Form B item (c) tick-box	Only on a “yes”
Bylaw amendments not yet filed at the land title office	Form B item (g) tick-box	Only on a “yes”
Passed resolutions not yet filed, and any wind-up resolution	Form B items (h) and (h.1)	Only on a “yes”
Notices of votes that have not happened yet	Form B item (i) tick-box	Only on a “yes”
Outstanding notices and work orders	Form B item (k) tick-box	Only on a “yes”
A summary sheet of the insurance coverage	Act section 59 (3) (l.2), added to the form in April 2023	Always — a summary, never the policy
The minutes	Nothing. Not a Form B attachment.	Never
The financial statements	Nothing. Not a Form B attachment.	Never
The insurance policy itself	Nothing. Not a Form B attachment.	Never
Engineering and depreciation reports other than the most recent one	Nothing. Not a Form B attachment.	Never

One more structural trap. If the building has sections, a section is its own corporation with its own budget and its own contingency reserve fund. The strata corporation’s Form B does not cover the section’s money, so in a sectioned building you need two.

The question that is about to change every Form B here

Item (p) of the form asks whether the strata has obtained any electrical planning report under section 94.1 of the Act. Today, on the North Shore, almost every honest answer is still “no”. Within twelve weeks that flips.

Section 5.8 (2) (a) of the Strata Property Regulation gives a strata corporation in a “specified area” until 31 December 2026 to obtain one. The specified areas are the Metro Vancouver Regional District, the Fraser Valley Regional District and the Capital Regional District, excluding islands reachable only by air or boat. North and West Vancouver sit inside Metro Vancouver, so that is the date that applies here.

Everywhere else in the province has until 31 December 2028. A building with fewer than five strata lots on 31 December 2023 is exempt under section 5.8 (3). A new strata corporation gets five years from the deposit of its strata plan.

The Province’s electrical planning report page says the report “is a permanent record of the strata corporation and must be disclosed on the Form B: Information Certificate when requested by owners and prospective purchasers”.

So there are two useful readings of a “no” in the next few weeks. In a building of five or more lots it means the report is overdue or about to be, and the cost of it has to land somewhere. In a building of four lots or fewer it means nothing at all, because none was ever required.

If the answer is “yes”, the copy must be attached, and it is worth more than the tick-box: it is the building’s own account of whether it has the electrical capacity for car chargers and heat pumps.

What it costs, and what nobody may charge you

Section 4.4 of the Regulation sets one price. The maximum for an Information Certificate, “including required attachments”, is $35 plus the cost of reproduction “up to 25 cents per page”.

Note what “including required attachments” does. The attachments are inside the $35. Only the copying is extra.

The Province’s Form B page adds this: “Sometimes a rush fee is charged by the strata corporation or the strata property manager if the Form B is requested with less than 7 days notice.”

Read that against the Regulation and two things stand out. The Regulation prescribes a maximum and contains no rush exception, and section 59 (1) gives the strata a week anyway, so there is no shorter deadline to rush. The Province reports the practice; it does not say the practice is lawful. If a rush fee appears on your invoice, ask for the provision it is charged under, in writing.

Two more charges that are often wrong. Inspecting records is free, but section 4.2 (2) gives that free inspection to owners, tenants and their authorised people — not to the world. And in 2018 BCCRT 495 a strata tried to charge the $35 certificate fee for what was really a records request. The tribunal’s answer was that the strata “is not permitted to charge fees for an Information Certificate and is limited to the amounts that can be charged for a section 36 records request”. The same decision found “The regulations are silent on postage charges, so I find that the owner has no obligation to pay postage to the strata.”

These prices do not move

Charge	Maximum	Set by
Form B, attachments included	$35	Regulation section 4.4
Copying, Form B or records	25 cents a page	Regulation sections 4.4 and 4.2 (1)
Inspecting records, for an owner or tenant	Free	Regulation section 4.2 (2)
Form F, Certificate of Payment	$15	Regulation section 6.10
Postage	Not published in the Regulation, and so not payable	2018 BCCRT 495
A rush fee	No amount is prescribed anywhere	Nothing. The Regulation has no rush provision.

How long is a Form B good for?

The Act never answers that question, and the silence is deliberate rather than accidental.

I read all of section 59, subsections (1) through (7), and all of Part 4 of the Regulation. No currency period, no validity period, no expiry. The only clock in section 59 is the week the strata has to produce the form, and the words in section 59 (2) that the information must be “as of the date of the certificate”.

Compare that with the Form F sitting one Act away. Section 115 (2) says “The certificate is current for the purposes of section 256 for a period of 60 days from the date it is issued.” The Legislature gave one certificate a shelf life and withheld it from the other.

BCFSA puts the practical consequence better than I can. Its Form B page says: “Many real estate licensees mistakenly believe that a Form B that is dated within the past 30 or 60 days is current.” It goes on: “if an annual general meeting was held after the Form B was prepared, although the Form B may be less than 30 days old, it may nonetheless be out of date”, and “the answer to the question respecting whether the strata corporation has been sued or is subject to arbitration can change in a day.”

One caution about that page, since it is the best source on this point. It opens by saying the Act “references a ‘current’ Form B”. I could not find that reference. In the Act, the word “current” attaches to the Certificate of Payment in section 256 (1), not to the Information Certificate. The advice is sound; the premise is not in the statute.

The honest rule, then, is not an age in days. It is a question: has an annual general meeting, a vote, a budget or a lawsuit happened since the date on this form? If the answer is yes, or unknown, order another one.

What a Form B is silent about

The gaps are not failures of the form. They are the boundaries of it, and knowing them is the difference between reading a Form B and relying on one.

A special levy nobody has voted on yet. Section 59 (3) (d) captures a levy “that has already been approved”. Section 59 (3) (i) captures a resolution once notice has gone out for it. A levy that council has priced, discussed and not yet noticed falls between the two and appears nowhere on the form. The minutes and the depreciation report are the only places you will find it.

Money the seller has paid into trust. Section 59 (3) (b) excludes “an amount paid into court or to the strata corporation in trust under section 114“. In 2024 BCCRT 570 the tribunal said it plainly: “SPA sections 59 and 114 are clear that amounts paid in trust will not be listed on the form B.” A clean Form B can therefore sit on top of a live dispute about fines.

How many homes in the building are rented. That disclosure is gone. The Act’s paragraph was repealed with effect from 24 November 2022, and the field was struck from the form itself by B.C. Reg. 6/2023. The Province’s own page lists the change as “No strata rental-restriction bylaws allowed (Nov 24, 2022)”. Rental restriction bylaws are no longer valid, so the count stopped mattering — but if you wanted it as a gauge of who lives there, it is not coming.

The insurance policy, and sometimes the summary too. Section 59 (3) (l.2) requires only “a summary of the strata corporation’s insurance coverage”. Then section 59 (5.1) takes even that out of the binding effect, if the strata got the information from its insurer or insurance agent. The policy itself is a strata record under section 35 (2) (g) — which means an owner can ask for it and a buyer cannot.

Anything that happened after the date on it. See the section above.

There is one more thing worth printing, because it is the Province’s own page that overstates it. That page says “The information disclosed in the Form B is binding on the strata corporation and the requestor.” Section 59 (5) says something narrower: the information “is binding on the strata corporation in its dealings with a person who relied on the certificate and acted reasonably in doing so”. The Act binds the strata corporation. It does not bind you, and it protects you only if you relied and acted reasonably.

Your parking stall may be a one-year permission

Item (m) of the form asks which parking stalls are allocated to the strata lot, and then makes the strata choose a category. The category is the whole answer, because the four of them carry completely different degrees of permanence.

The form itself carries a footnote on the common-property options: “The allocation of a parking stall that is common property may be limited as short term exclusive use subject to section 76 of the Strata Property Act, or otherwise, and may therefore be subject to change in the future.”

Section 76 is where that leads, and it is blunter than the footnote. A permission to use common property exclusively may be given “for a period of not more than one year”, may be renewed with changed conditions, and “may be cancelled by the strata corporation giving the owner or tenant reasonable notice of the cancellation”.

There is exactly one exception, and it is narrow. Regulation section 5.101 allows a longer period for one prescribed class of stall: one where electric vehicle charging infrastructure was installed following an owner’s request under section 90.1 of the Act. For that class, “the period specified … is 5 years”.

The four parking answers, and what each one is worth

What the Form B says	What it means	Can it be taken away?
The stall is part of the strata lot	You own it, the way you own the kitchen	No
The stall is a separate strata lot, or part of one	It is its own piece of titled property, with its own strata lot number	No, but check it is being sold to you
The stall is limited common property	Common property set aside for your lot by a three-quarters vote filed at the land title office	Only by the process in the Act for removing the designation
The stall is common property, allocated with strata council approval	A permission under section 76, capped at one year at a time	Yes. Renewable, and cancellable on reasonable notice.
The stall is common property, allocated and rented at a monthly amount	The same permission, with rent attached	Yes, and the rent can change on renewal
The stall “may have been allocated by owner developer assignment”	The strata is telling you it does not know	Treat as unresolved until you see the assignment document

If the seller tells you the stall “came with the unit” and the Form B puts it in the last three rows, the Form B is the document that counts. Storage lockers carry the same footnote and the same risk.

The one test you can run on the two attachments

A buyer with a Form B has the current budget and, usually, the most recent depreciation report. Those two documents are enough to run a real check, and it is arithmetic rather than opinion.

Regulation section 6.1 (2) says the annual contribution to the contingency reserve fund “must be at least 10% of the total amount budgeted for the contribution to the operating fund for the current fiscal year”. Section 6.1 (1) adds that the amount must be determined “after consideration of the most recent depreciation report, if any”.

So open the budget, find the operating fund total and the contingency reserve fund contribution, and divide. If the second is under a tenth of the first, something needs explaining. If it is exactly a tenth while the depreciation report lists major work in the next few years, the building is contributing the legal minimum against a known bill.

Then read the contingency reserve fund balance from the form. Section 59 (3) (f) requires it “minus any expenditures which have already been approved but not yet taken from the fund”, so the figure on the form is already net of approved spending. Compare it with what the depreciation report says is coming.

One live case shows why the label on that number matters. In 2023 BCCRT 961 a Form B reported that there would be $5,664 left in the contingency reserve fund after paying an invoice. The tribunal found that the money was in the operating fund, and that “It therefore would have been accurate to say that the strata expected there to be $5,664 remaining in its operating fund”. Same dollars, wrong fund, and a very different picture of the building.

What the building must keep, and for how long

This table is the reason to ask for history rather than a snapshot. Section 4.1 of the Regulation sets the retention periods, and past Form Bs are on the list.

How long the strata must keep the thing you want to read

Record	Retention period	Regulation
The registered strata plan, and depreciation reports	Permanently	Section 4.1 (2)
Electrical planning reports, and electric vehicle charging reports	Permanently	Section 4.1 (2)
Engineers’, risk management and sanitation reports on major items	Until the item is disposed of or replaced	Section 4.1 (2.1)
Minutes, budgets and financial statements, and past Information Certificates	At least 6 years	Section 4.1 (3)
Written contracts, including insurance policies	At least 6 years after the contract or policy ends	Section 4.1 (4)
Correspondence of the strata corporation and council	At least 2 years	Section 4.1 (5)
The bylaws, the rules, and the Act itself	The current copy only	Section 4.1 (6)

The six-year line on past Form Bs is not theoretical. In 2021 BCCRT 1297 an owner asked for the building’s historic Form B records and won. The tribunal held that “Meeting minutes and vote results, books of account, Information Certificates (Forms B), and annual budgets and financial statements, must be retained for 6 years”, and ordered the strata to produce “Form B records, including any attachments, from October 29, 2014 to the date of this decision” for the lots with common-property parking and lockers.

Several years of Form Bs, side by side, show you whether the strata fees, the reserve balance and the answers to the lawsuit question have been drifting. One Form B cannot show you that.

What happens when a Form B is wrong

The tribunal that handles almost every strata dispute in this province cannot fix an inaccurate Form B. That is the single most useful thing on this page.

Section 59 (6) says that on application by the strata corporation, an owner, or a person affected by a certificate, “the Supreme Court may make any order it considers just in the circumstances to give effect to or relieve the strata corporation from some or all of the consequences of an inaccurate certificate”.

In 2023 BCCRT 961 the tribunal put its own limits on the record: “The CRT has consistently held that it has no jurisdiction (or legal authority) to make orders covered by section 59 (6).” It then refused to resolve the claim.

The practical consequence is a cost one. A Civil Resolution Tribunal strata claim costs $125 to file online and $100 for a final decision. A Supreme Court action is a different order of money and time entirely. So the remedy exists, and for most buyers it is out of reach — which is an argument for a fresh Form B and a subject condition, not for litigation.

Decided cases, including the ones the owner or buyer lost

Case	What went wrong	Outcome	What a buyer can take from it
2023 BCCRT 961	A Form B put an operating fund balance in the contingency reserve fund line	The tribunal refused to resolve it. The owner was “substantially unsuccessful”	A wrong Form B is a Supreme Court problem, not a tribunal one
2024 BCCRT 17	A Form B referred to a rental rule that was unenforceable, and to threatened litigation. The sellers claimed their sale was damaged	Dismissed. The tribunal still said the strata “did not amend the Form B … which it should have done”	Being right about the error is not enough. The claim failed because no financial loss was proved
2024 BCCRT 570	Owners needed a Form B for a loan; it showed disputed fines as money owed, so they paid	Their counterclaim was dismissed, and they paid the strata’s $225 in fees	Fines paid into trust under section 114 stay off the Form B. Paying to clear it can cost you the argument
2018 BCCRT 495	A strata charged the $35 certificate fee, plus postage, for a records request	The owner won. The strata was limited to 25 cents a page and reimbursed $225 in fees	The fee depends on which section you asked under. Ask under the right one
2021 BCCRT 1297	An owner wanted years of past Form Bs to settle who had which parking stall	The owner was “largely successful” and got the records	History is obtainable. Ask for several years, not one form

Note what the sellers in 2024 BCCRT 17 ran into. The tribunal agreed the form should have been amended, then dismissed the claim because “the applicants have not proved that any prospective buyers received the original Form B”. An error you cannot price is an error you cannot recover.

Mistakes that cost money

• Accepting the Form B that came with the listing. It was ordered when the home went on the market. A budget, a vote or a lawsuit since then does not show on it.
• Treating “no depreciation report attached” as “no depreciation report”. Section 59 (4) (d) attaches the most recent one “if any”. Ask which it is: nothing attached, or nothing to attach.
• Reading the parking line without reading the category. A common-property stall allocated by council is a permission capped at one year, not a possession.
• Assuming the minutes are coming. They are not a Form B attachment. Get the seller’s written authorisation and ask under section 36.
• Taking a clean “owes nothing” line at face value in a fines dispute. Money paid into trust under section 114 never appears there.
• Forgetting the section. In a building with sections, one Form B leaves out a whole budget and a whole reserve fund.
• Paying a rush fee without asking what it is charged under. The Regulation sets a maximum and has no rush provision.
• Letting the subject removal date arrive before the documents do. The strata gets one week for the Form B and two weeks for records. Count backwards from your dates.

Questions people actually ask

What does Form B mean?

It is the name of a prescribed form in the Strata Property Regulation, headed “INFORMATION CERTIFICATE (Section 59)”. The letter is just its position in the Regulation’s list of standard forms, which runs from Form A to Form Z.1.

How long is a Form B valid for in BC?

There is no period in the Act or the Regulation. It states the position as of its own date. The Form F, by contrast, is current for 60 days under section 115 (2).

Can I order a Form B myself, before I have an accepted offer?

Section 59 (1) names a purchaser, so a buyer may request one directly. Whether you are a “purchaser” before you are in contract is exactly the kind of question to put to your lawyer or notary rather than to the strata manager.

What is the difference between a Form B and a Form F?

A Form B describes the building and the strata lot. A Form F certifies that the seller does not owe the strata money, or has dealt with it. The Form F is the one the land title office insists on: section 256 (1) says the registrar “must not accept” a lease, an assignment of a lease, an agreement for sale, or “a conveyance of title to a strata lot” without a current one.

Does the Form B tell me how many apartments in the building are rented?

No. That requirement ended on 24 November 2022, when rental restriction bylaws stopped being valid, and the field was later removed from the form.

Who should actually read it, me or my realtor?

Both, and then your lawyer or notary. The form is where the money questions start, and the minutes and the depreciation report are where they get answered.

What I could not confirm, and did not print

• When section 94.1, the electrical planning report section, was enacted. The consolidation carries no history note on it and the Province’s page gives no date. It is in force now, and the deadlines above are verified, so the enactment date was left out.
• Any legal basis for a rush fee. I searched the Act and the Regulation and found none. That is reported above as an absence, not as a prohibition, because an absence is what I can stand behind.
• Whether the strata rental count was removed from the form on the same day the Act changed. It was not: the Act’s paragraph went on 24 November 2022 and the form’s field went later, by B.C. Reg. 6/2023. The two dates are stated separately above for that reason.
• Any decided case in which a buyer recovered money from a strata corporation for an inaccurate Form B. I did not find one. That is not the same as there being none, and section 59 (6) explains why such a case would be heard somewhere this search could not reach.
• A government or regulator list of what the Form B does not cover. There isn’t one. Every gap in the section above was built by reading what the Act requires and noting what it leaves out.

Read next

• Strata depreciation report: what North Shore buyers should ask for
• Strata insurance deductibles in BC: what a buyer should check
• Property Disclosure Statement in BC: what it does not cover
• What happens to your deposit if a BC home deal falls apart
• Lawyer or notary: who should close your BC home purchase?
• All of the North Shore buying and selling guides

General information, not advice on a specific property. This page explains the Strata Property Act, the Strata Property Regulation and decided tribunal cases as they stood when it was written. Fees, deadlines, forms and the law itself change, and a strata corporation’s own bylaws and records govern the building you are buying into. Confirm the current position with the authority that owns it: the Province of British Columbia for the Act, the Regulation and the prescribed forms, the BC Financial Services Authority for licensee conduct, the Land Title and Survey Authority for registration, the Civil Resolution Tribunal for its own jurisdiction and fees, and the strata corporation or its manager for anything about one building. Take legal advice from your own lawyer or notary before you commit money. Every figure on this page was verified at its primary source on 11 October 2026 and checked again in a separate pass. Last reviewed: October 2026.

Written by Tom Jahed, licensed REALTOR®, Vanak Realty, North Vancouver.