08/08/2019 – Jurisdiction British Columbia
Part 67 published on 01/09/2019
Court confirms its authority in relation to rectification of strata plan
This case concerned an owner’s request to have the Court rectify or amend certain errors in the strata plan. The Court had granted the requested order, but the Land Titles Registrar asserted that the process had not respected the authority of the Registrar, and refused to carry out the requested amendments. The Registrar applied to have the Court’s order set aside.
The Court confirmed its authority to make the order (and also varied the previous order). In doing so, the Court rejected the Registrar’s argument that the Registrar had exclusive jurisdiction over such matters. However, the Court also confirmed the concurrent authority of the Registrar to correct errors under Section 14.12 of Strata Property Regulation 43/2000.
The Court said:
I conclude that the court has the jurisdiction to order that the Strata Plan be rectified to reflect the agreement of the parties who submitted it for registration and that the Registrar is bound by any such decision.
…
Nothing in these reasons should be taken to suggest that the Registrar does not have the jurisdiction to correct errors pursuant to Regulation 14.12. The Registrar clearly has that jurisdiction. In this case it may be that the petitioners could have applied directly to the Registrar to correct the errors without obtaining a court order. However, in my view they were not required to have the Registrar determine the question of whether the Strata Plan contained errors that should be rectified.