Who Owns the Parking Stall When You Buy a BC Condo?

When you buy a condo or townhouse in British Columbia, the parking stall and the storage locker are not automatically part of what you are buying. The Strata Property Act sorts them into four legal positions, and in one of those four the seller has no right to pass anything to you at all. The document that tells you which position applies is the Form B Information Certificate, and it is the one strata document a buyer can demand in their own name.

The short version

A stall or locker can be part of your strata lot, a separate strata lot, limited common property, or plain common property. The first three travel with the home. The fourth does not.
A common property stall is held on permission under section 76 of the Act. It runs for no more than one year, the strata can renew it on changed terms, and the strata can cancel it by giving the owner reasonable notice.
The permission is given to an owner or tenant, not to the home. The seller cannot sign it over to you.
A money receipt proves nothing. B.C.’s real estate regulator says the designations on the Form B are what must be considered, whatever the seller paid.
Limited common property is the strong form, but how it was created decides how easily it can be taken away — a 3/4 vote, or a unanimous vote.
In some buildings the developer leased most of the parkade before the strata plan was deposited. In a 2025 tribunal decision the strata corporation itself was held to have no authority to reassign the stalls.
You can demand a Form B as a purchaser. You cannot demand the strata’s other records in your own name — section 36 runs only to owners, certain tenants, and people authorised in writing by them.
Do all of this before your subjects come off. A buyer who sued over parking after completion lost, because the registered strata plan had been there to read.

On this page: the four boxes on the Form B · why a common property stall does not travel · “but I paid for that stall” · limited common property, and how it was created · the developer’s parkade lease · a stall with its own title · the storage locker · what a buyer can actually demand · how binding the Form B is · the EV stall exception · older buildings · before your subjects come off · common questions

The four boxes on the Form B, and what each one means

You do not have to guess at the legal categories. The prescribed Form B does it for you. Item (m) asks whether any parking stalls are allocated to the strata lot, and if the answer is yes, it makes the strata tick one of four boxes for each stall. Item (n) repeats the same four boxes for storage lockers.

Read off the Strata Property Regulation, B.C. Reg. 43/2000, the four boxes are: the stall “is/are part of the strata lot”; “is/are separate strata lot(s) or part(s) of a strata lot”; “is/are limited common property”; or “is/are common property”.

That fourth box is the one to slow down on, because the Form then asks a second question about it, and because it is the only box where the seller’s use of the stall for the last fifteen years tells you nothing about your own position after completion.

Box ticked on the Form B	Who owns the space	Does it come with the home?	What to ask for
Part of the strata lot	You do, as part of what you are buying	Yes — it is inside the lot boundaries	The registered strata plan, to see the boundary
A separate strata lot	Whoever is on that title	Only if it is also being sold and transferred to you	A title search on the stall, and confirmation it is in your contract
Limited common property	All the owners together; your lot has the exclusive right to use it	Yes — the right is attached to the lot, not the person	The strata plan or the filed designation resolution
Common property	All the owners together	No. Any use is by permission given to a person	The Form B’s follow-up answer, plus any documents behind it

Where the stall is common property, Form B item (m)(iii) makes the strata say how it came to be used: allocated with strata council approval, allocated with council approval and rented at a stated amount per month, or — and this box is worth reading twice — the stall “may have been allocated by owner developer assignment”. The Form then requires the strata to “attach any applicable documents in the possession of the strata corporation”.

Notice the hedge in the Government’s own wording. May have been. The form concedes that the strata corporation may not know what arrangement sits behind the stall people have been parking in for twenty years.

Why a common property stall does not travel with the home

Section 76 of the Strata Property Act is headed “Permission or privilege — exclusive use”, and it is short. Subsection (1) says the strata corporation “may give an owner or tenant permission to exclusively use, or a special privilege in relation to, common assets or common property that is not designated as limited common property.”

Then come the three limits. The permission may be given “for a period of not more than … one year”. The strata “may renew the permission or privilege and on renewal may change the period or conditions.” And it “may be cancelled by the strata corporation giving the owner or tenant reasonable notice of the cancellation.”

No cause is required. No compensation is required. No vote of the owners is required. Reasonable notice is the whole test, and the Act does not say how many days that is.

Section 76 permission	What the Act says
Who may give it	The strata corporation
Who may receive it	An owner or a tenant — a person, not a strata lot
What it can cover	Common property that is not designated limited common property, and common assets
How long	No more than one year, with one narrow exception for certain EV stalls
Renewal	Allowed, and the strata may change the period or the conditions on renewal
Ending it	Cancelled on reasonable notice from the strata corporation
Owner’s vote needed to cancel	None

Here is the part that catches buyers. The permission runs to “an owner or tenant”. On completion the seller stops being an owner of that strata lot, and the person the permission was given to no longer exists in that capacity. Nothing in section 76 transfers it, and the Act defines an owner as the person shown in the land title register as the owner of a freehold estate in the strata lot. So you do not inherit the stall. You arrive with no right to it, and you have to ask.

The Civil Resolution Tribunal has put the point plainly. In a decision reported as 2024 BCCRT 709, issued 24 July 2024, a strata lot owner had used a common property area for parking for more than twenty years and argued that the strata’s acquiescence had earned it a right. The tribunal member disagreed, and wrote: “The only way for a strata lot owner to gain rights to exclusively use common property that is not LCP is by either designating the area as LCP or getting permission under SPA section 76 for short-term exclusive use.” The claims were dismissed.

Two notes on that quote, so you read it correctly. It was written about an area that was plain common property, so it is not a complete list of the ways parking can be held — a stall inside your strata lot boundary, or a stall with its own title, is a different thing. And the word “LCP” is the usual short form for limited common property.

“But I paid for that stall” — what the regulator says about that

This is the most common sentence in the whole subject, and sellers say it in good faith. Money often did change hands, either to the developer or to the strata.

The B.C. Financial Services Authority, which regulates real estate licensees in this province, addresses it directly in its practice resource Parking Stalls and Storage Lockers. Its words: “Notwithstanding any claims by sellers that they paid for a parking stall/storage locker and thus own the parking stall/storage locker, the designations as set out on the Form B are the designations that must be considered when determining how to represent parking stalls/storage lockers”.

The same page tells sellers and their agents that “the seller should not promise a buyer that the buyer will be entitled to use any of the common property” and that the seller “should refer the buyer to the information on the Form B”.

There is a decided case behind this, and it went against the buyers. The British Columbia Real Estate Association’s legal commentary Parking Stalls and Strata Units #464, written by Jennifer Clee, B.A., LL.B. and dated 1 August 2013, reports a dispute in which buyers sued their sellers for negligent misrepresentation over the number of parking stalls included in the sale. The disclosure statement said two stalls and a locker were included. Both sides believed both stalls were limited common property. Only one of them was.

According to that commentary, the original purchasers had paid the developer $5,350 for the use of the second stall, but “neither they nor the developer took steps to amend the strata plan”, so the second stall “as common property, remained under the control of the strata corporation”. The buyers’ claim against the sellers was dismissed. The court, as the commentary describes it, “held that the buyers’ failure to carefully review the registered strata plan prior to removing subject conditions … constituted a failure to exercise reasonable care and due diligence.”

The case is reported as Blackall and Homan v. Jarrold and Foster, 2013 BCPC 4. We have cited the Association’s account of it rather than the judgment, because the judgment is not freely readable online and nobody here has read it. The lesson does not depend on the fine print: the strata plan was available, and reading it before subject removal was treated as the buyers’ job.

Limited common property is the strong form — but how it was created matters

Limited common property, which everyone shortens to LCP, is defined in section 1 of the Act as “common property designated for the exclusive use of the owners of one or more strata lots”. Read that carefully: the right belongs to the owners of a strata lot, not to a named person. That is exactly why LCP travels with the home and a section 76 permission does not.

LCP is also recorded. Under the Regulation, a strata plan tendered for deposit “must show the dimensions of the boundaries of the strata lots and limited common property”. And the registrar “must note on the common property record … any designation or removal of limited common property”. So LCP parking is something you can go and look at, which is the single biggest practical difference between it and a handshake.

Section 73 lists the ways common property becomes LCP: by the developer, either on the strata plan when it is deposited or by a plan amendment under section 258; by an amendment to the strata plan under section 257; or by a resolution passed at a general meeting under section 74.

Those routes are not equally durable, and almost nothing written for buyers says so. Section 75 sets out the asymmetry. If the designation came from the developer or from a strata plan amendment, “the designation may only be removed by amending the plan under section 257” — and section 257 requires “a resolution approving the amendment … passed by a unanimous vote”. If instead the designation came from a 3/4 vote under section 74, section 75(2) says it “may only be removed by a resolution passed by a 3/4 vote”.

How the LCP was created	Where it shows up	What it takes to remove it	How secure for a buyer
By the developer on the strata plan at deposit	The registered strata plan	Strata plan amendment under s. 257 — unanimous vote	Strongest
By the developer, plan amendment under s. 258, before the first annual general meeting	The amended strata plan	Strata plan amendment under s. 257 — unanimous vote	Strongest
By strata plan amendment under s. 257	The amended strata plan	Another s. 257 amendment — unanimous vote	Strongest
By 3/4 vote under s. 74	The filed resolution and sketch plan	Another 3/4 vote, filed at the land title office	Strong, but removable without unanimity
Not designated at all — s. 76 permission	Nowhere on the plan; at best in the strata’s own records	Reasonable notice from the strata	Not security at all

Section 258 deserves a line of its own, because it is literally headed “Parking designated by owner developer as limited common property”. It lets an owner developer, “at any time before the first annual general meeting of the strata corporation, amend the strata plan to designate parking stalls as limited common property”. Subsection (3) allows “a maximum of 2 extra parking stalls” per strata lot the same way. And subsection (6) says a designation under those subsections “does not require approval by a resolution at an annual or special general meeting”.

So in a newer building, the parking map was very likely drawn by the developer, alone, before the owners had their first meeting — and it now takes every single owner agreeing to change it.

The developer’s parkade lease, and why even the strata may not be able to help

There is a fifth arrangement that is not one of the Form B’s four boxes, and it is the one that produces the worst surprises. In some developments the developer leased the parking areas to itself or to a related company before the strata plan was deposited, and then handed individual stalls to buyers by assigning part of that lease.

We looked for the section of the Act that authorises this and could not find one. There is no provision in the Strata Property Act that lets an owner developer lease or licence common property parking. What makes it work is timing: before the strata plan is deposited, the land is the developer’s own, and it is not yet common property at all. The Act then simply accommodates what already exists — section 252 says that on deposit of a strata plan the registrar “must note on the common property record a charge or other interest that separately charges the common property.”

The reverse case proves the point. Once the land is common property, a strata corporation cannot do the same thing freely. Section 253 says a disposition of common property by “a lease for a term exceeding 3 years” is a subdivision of land, and Part 7 of the Land Title Act applies to it. Anything short of that still needs a 3/4 vote under section 80. That asymmetry is why these legacy parkade leases exist in buildings from a certain era and cannot be created from scratch today.

Two consequences matter to you as a buyer. First, BCFSA says these arrangements are hard to see: “Leases of common property parking and storage areas are seldom registered on title, however, the Form B is required to indicate whether such a lease is likely in place.” A title search will not find them. Second, where a sublease exists, BCFSA says it typically “provides that the owner must assign the sublease to a new purchaser at the time the strata lot is sold” — so unlike a section 76 permission, this kind of interest is meant to be assigned to you, and the assignment is a document that has to actually happen.

And the uncomfortable part. In Chan v. The Owners, 2025 BCCRT 1253, issued 9 September 2025, an owner asked her strata to sort out a parking problem. A bylaw recorded that certain stalls were “governed by a lease arrangement as set out in the disclosure statement that effectively grants the owner developer long term rights and control over most of the parking stalls in the strata”, and the tribunal member wrote that this “is a common practice owner developers use to maintain control over the parking stalls and assignment of them.” His conclusion, at paragraph 18: “On this basis, I agree with the strata that it does not have authority to re-assign parking stalls”.

Be careful how much weight you put on that. The tribunal never saw the lease. Paragraph 17 records that “Neither party provided an executed copy of the primary lease”, that “it is difficult to determine if such a lease arrange exists and, if so, on what terms”, and that the member inferred the stalls were leased because the owner “did not object to the strata’s submissions nor state otherwise.” So this is a finding about one building on uncontested evidence, not a rule for the province. The useful lesson is the one the decision shows almost by accident: in these buildings the paperwork often cannot be produced at all. That is a reason to ask for it in writing while you still have subjects, not after.

Can a parking stall have its own title? Yes — and no

Form B item (m) has a box for a stall that “is/are separate strata lot(s)”, so clearly it happens. But section 244(2) of the Act says the opposite for new residential plans: “Parking stalls, garage areas, storage areas and similar areas or spaces intended to be used in conjunction with a residential strata lot must not be designated as separate strata lots but must be included as part of a strata lot or as part of the common property.”

Both are true, for two reasons. Section 244 sets out what a strata plan must contain when it is tendered for deposit, so it governs plans going in from its own commencement onward; it does not reach back and reorganise plans deposited under the former Condominium Act. And the prohibition is limited by its own words to spaces “intended to be used in conjunction with a residential strata lot”, so parking on the commercial side of a mixed-use building is outside it.

If the Form B comes back with that box ticked, treat it as a second purchase. BCFSA’s wording is that where a seller is selling both, “both must be listed for sale and separately transferred to the buyer.” A separately titled stall has its own title and its own entry in the land title register, and it does not come along with your strata lot just because the seller used it. Ask your lawyer or notary to search that title and to confirm it is named in your contract.

The storage locker is the forgotten half of the problem

Everything above applies to lockers. Form B item (n) repeats item (m)’s structure word for word, with the same four boxes, the same follow-up question about council approval, monthly rent and possible developer assignment, and the same asterisked warning.

In practice lockers get less attention than stalls, from everybody. They are smaller, they are rarely priced separately in people’s minds, and a cage in a corridor looks less like real estate than a numbered rectangle in a parkade. The legal position is identical. If the locker is common property used by permission, it is not yours after completion, and the strata can reallocate it.

One more thing worth checking if the locker matters to you: whether it is physically where the Form B says it is. Lockers are moved, renumbered and rebuilt more often than stalls.

What a buyer can actually demand, and it is less than most people think

This is the part of the subject nobody writes down, so here it is plainly.

Section 59(1) of the Act says: “Within one week of a request by an owner, a purchaser or a person authorized by an owner or purchaser, the strata corporation must give to the person making the request an Information Certificate in the prescribed form.” A purchaser is named, expressly. The Regulation caps the fee: “The maximum fee that the strata corporation may charge for an Information Certificate, including required attachments … is $35 plus the cost of photocopying, or other means of reproduction, up to 25 cents per page.”

Now look at section 36, which is the access route for everything else the strata holds. It requires the strata to make its records available for inspection by, and provide copies to, “(a) an owner, (b) a tenant who, under section 147 or 148, has been assigned a landlord’s right to inspect and obtain copies of records and documents, or (c) a person authorized in writing by an owner or tenant referred to in paragraph (a) or (b).”

A purchaser is not on that list. We read the whole of Part 4 of the Act, which runs from section 25 to section 65 and contains both section 36 and section 59, and the word “purchaser” appears in it exactly once — in section 59(1). The Legislature used the word where it meant it.

So the seller’s signed authorisation on your strata document request is not a courtesy or a formality. It is the statutory mechanism in section 36(1)(c), and without it the strata corporation is entitled to say no.

What you want	Can a purchaser demand it?	How long the strata has	What it can charge
Form B Information Certificate, with its required attachments	Yes — s. 59(1) names a purchaser	Within one week of the request	$35 plus copying up to 25 cents a page
Strata plan, filed LCP resolutions, contracts, correspondence, the owners list with stall and locker numbers	No, not in your own name — only with the seller’s written authorisation, under s. 36(1)(c)	Within 2 weeks, or one week for bylaws and rules	25 cents a page for copies; inspection is free
The strata plan drawing and the common property record at the land title office	Anyone can search these; you do not need the strata at all	Immediately, online	No charge to search and order the common property record

That last row is the one buyers use least and should use most. The strata plan and the common property record are land title records, not strata records, and the Land Title and Survey Authority’s own help page for searching common property says: “There is no charge to search and order the common property record.” That record is where a designation or removal of limited common property gets noted. Note also that the strata plan is not one of the documents the Act requires to be attached to a Form B, so getting the Form B does not get you the drawing.

One more document worth naming. Section 35 requires the strata to keep “a list of … owners, with their strata lot addresses, mailing addresses if different, strata lot numbers as shown on the strata plan, parking stall and storage locker numbers, if any, and unit entitlements”. There is, by statute, a list that ties stall and locker numbers to strata lots. Ask for it through the seller’s authorisation, and ask early — the Regulation requires only the current version of that list to be retained, so there is no historical copy to fall back on.

How binding is the Form B answer?

Mostly binding, and this is genuine protection — but not unconditional, and the usual summaries leave out the qualification.

Parking and storage sit at section 59(3)(l.1), which requires the certificate to disclose “which parking stalls and storage lockers, if any, have been allocated to the strata lot”. Section 59(5) then says: “The information in subsection (3) disclosed in a certificate is binding on the strata corporation in its dealings with a person who relied on the certificate and acted reasonably in doing so.”

There is one carve-out from that binding effect, at section 59(5.1), and it is for the insurance summary at paragraph (l.2), not for parking. Parking and storage get the full strength of section 59(5).

Three limits to keep in view. Section 59(2) fixes the information “as of the date of the certificate”, so a Form B tells you about the day it was signed and no later day. Section 59(5) requires you to have “acted reasonably” in relying on it — a buyer who also held the strata plan, saw that it said something different, and relied on the convenient document is on weak ground. And section 59(6) lets the strata corporation apply to the Supreme Court, which “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.”

There is also a limit built into the Form itself, printed under item (m) in the Regulation: “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.” Item (n) carries the same note for lockers.

Put those together and the honest reading is this. The Form B binds the strata to what it told you was allocated on that date. It does not promise you keep it. For a common property stall, the form is warning you of exactly that, in the Government’s own words.

Practical consequence: get a Form B dated inside your own subject period. Not the one the listing agent ordered two months ago.

The EV stall exception: five years instead of one

Section 76(2)(b) has a second limb that most writing on this subject has not caught up with. As well as the one-year limit, it allows a longer period “in the case of a permission or privilege given in relation to a parking stall in a prescribed class of parking stalls, any longer period set out in the regulations.”

Exactly one class has been prescribed. Regulation section 5.101, headed “Exclusive use — parking stall”, says that for the purposes of section 76(2)(b)(ii), parking stalls are a prescribed class where both of two criteria are met: “EV charging infrastructure has been installed for use at the parking stall” and “the installation resulted from an owner’s request made under section 90.1 of the Act”. The period set for that class “is 5 years”.

Read the second criterion carefully, because it does a lot of work. The five years only arises where the charger was installed following an owner’s request under section 90.1, the section headed “Owner request for approval of alterations”. A charger the developer installed, or one the strata installed on its own initiative, is not in the prescribed class. That stall is back on the one-year clock.

If you are buying a home partly because the stall has a charger in it, this is a question to ask in writing: who requested the installation, and when.

Older buildings: a pre-2000 permission can outlive the one-year rule

A fair amount of the North Shore’s condo and townhouse stock predates the Strata Property Act, which replaced the old Condominium Act. For those buildings there is a transitional rule that almost nothing written for buyers mentions.

Regulation section 17.7 is headed “Short term exclusive use”, and it says that despite section 76(2) of the Act, a right, permission or privilege granted before that section came into force, under section 117(f) of the Condominium Act or a similar bylaw, over common property not designated limited common property under section 53 of that Act, “continues to be enforceable in accordance with its terms, but may be renewed only as permitted by section 76 of the Act.”

In plain words: in an older building, a grandfathered parking arrangement can still run on whatever terms it was given, which may be far longer than a year. When it comes up for renewal, it drops into the modern one-year regime. If the Form B or the strata’s records point to an arrangement from that era, the terms of the original grant are the document to find.

Before your subjects come off: the checks, in order

None of this takes long. All of it has to happen while you can still walk away.

Get a Form B dated inside your own subject period, and read items (m) and (n) before anything else in it. One of four boxes is ticked for each stall and each locker.
If the box says common property, read the follow-up answer at (m)(iii) or (n)(iii), and ask for the documents the Form requires the strata to attach.
If the box says limited common property, find out how it was designated — on the plan, by a plan amendment, or by a filed 3/4-vote resolution. That decides what it would take to remove it.
If the box says separate strata lot, treat it as a second property: its own title search, and its own line in your contract.
Order the strata plan and the common property record from the land title office. Searching the common property record costs nothing, and a limited common property designation or removal is noted there.
Get the seller’s written authorisation for the strata’s records under section 36(1)(c), and use it to ask for the owners list with stall and locker numbers, the filed designation resolutions, and any contract or lease touching parking.
Ask the strata or its manager, in writing, one question: is there any lease or licence of the parking or storage areas held by the developer or a related company, and if so, what has to be assigned to me on completion?
Put it in the contract. If the stall or locker matters to you, your subject clause and your contract should say which numbers you are buying and in what legal capacity, and your lawyer or notary should see the Form B and the strata plan before subject removal.
Walk the parkade. Stand in the stall. Open the locker. Check the numbers match the Form B.

If any answer comes back vague, that is information. A strata that cannot tell you in writing what legal status a stall has is a strata that may not be able to defend your use of it either.

Common questions

What does section 76 of the Strata Property Act allow for?

It lets a strata corporation give an owner or tenant permission to exclusively use common property that is not limited common property, for no more than one year, subject to conditions, renewable on changed terms, and cancellable by the strata on reasonable notice. Certain EV charging stalls can be given five years instead, under Regulation section 5.101.

What is section 72 of the Strata Property Act?

It is the repair section, and it is about cost rather than ownership. Section 72(1) says the strata corporation “must repair and maintain common property and common assets”, and section 72(2) lets the strata, by bylaw, make an owner responsible for repairing limited common property they have a right to use. So who fixes a damaged stall or locker depends on its status and on the building’s registered bylaws, not on who parks there.

Can the strata make me let them into my stall?

Yes, within reason. Section 77 says an owner who has the right to use common property, including limited common property, “must allow the strata corporation reasonable access” to it. Exclusive use is not the same as a private room.

If the seller’s stall does not come with the home, can I complain to the tribunal?

Not before completion. The Civil Resolution Tribunal‘s strata jurisdiction runs to a strata corporation, an owner or a tenant. A buyer who has not completed is none of those. That is the strongest reason to treat this as a subject-removal question and not a problem to sort out later.

Does a stall that is part of my strata lot cost me more in strata fees?

A stall inside your strata lot boundary is part of the lot you already pay for. A stall that is a separate strata lot is a different matter: it is its own lot with its own unit entitlement, and unit entitlement is what strata fees are calculated from. Ask your lawyer or notary to confirm the figures for that specific title before you commit.

The strata has been renting me a second stall for years. Is that safe?

It is a section 76 permission with money attached, and the Form B has a box for exactly that — “allocated with strata council approval and rented at $ … per month”. The rent does not change its legal character. It still runs for no more than a year at a time and the strata can still cancel it on reasonable notice.

Who do I ask when the Form B is unclear?

Your lawyer or notary, before subject removal, and the strata manager in writing. BCFSA’s own guidance to licensees on this subject is that where the Form B is unclear or conflicts with other information, the licensee should investigate and recommend the client get legal advice. That is good advice for the client as well as the agent.

Thinking about buying or selling on the North Shore?

Leave your name and number and I will come back to you, usually the same day. Tell me the address if you have one and I will pull the sale history and the documents that matter before we talk. No charge, no obligation.

Prefer to talk now? Call or text 778-903-7306.

Who Owns the Parking Stall and Storage Locker When You Buy a BC Condo