A clean Form B can feel like the ultimate green flag for buyers looking for a low-maintenance, stress-free home with fewer surprises and more peace of mind. Here are five hot tips to help you spot the kind of strata paperwork that makes buyers breathe a little easier – STOP! There is no perfect strata. There are no five hot tips. There is no clean Form B. All urban legends. Because being a good real estate agent, as it relates to strata sales, is more akin to being a matchmaker and a tarot card reader than a salesperson or agent, in this Strata Gal’s opinion.
Look for patterns, not silver bullets.
So, your first meeting with a buyer should be more along the lines of:
“Talk to Madame Agent darrrrrlinnnggg… What are you looking for in a strata?”
Do you want wealthy? Thrifty?
Active? Chill?
Maybe rigid authority is hot to you. Who am I to judge? Whatever floats your boat. But in that case, you as Madame Agent will gently usher clients over to the stratas with a high volume of bylaw infractions in the meeting minutes, along with strict accompanying enforcement.
“ ”
The documents tell you an awful lot; they can’t tell you if the strata is perfect (that doesn’t exist), but they can tell you it’s the right match for the person standing in front of you, in earnest, asking you to help them find The One.
Katharine Olson
Owner and Founder of Groundbreaking Strata
That’s why patterns in the governing documents are far superior in assessing a good match than a clean Form B alone. Because there will always be things that matter more to some people, and less to others.
So, in case no one has told you yet, get used to doing some reading; a lot of reading. That Form B four-pager is just the start. It’s the remaining 236 pages that you paid $0.25 each for that are the good stuff. That is the product you are selling.
And that reading can be a little dry, unless you try to see the pages of the minutes not as merely disclosures but also as The Story of Us for the strata. Or maybe The MidCentury and The Restless. Take your pick. But it helps; it will give you better framing to talk to your clients about what it will feel like to live there, and about what might come in their Beautiful Future Together. *
(*beautiful stories not guaranteed)
Be prepared to dig deep.
Going back to our lovely Madame Agent, if you were her and read our minutes, a few things would very likely reveal themselves:
Parking? Storage? Out. And no crystal ball here. You would pull out the strata plan and the original Disclosure Statement (you may need to request separately in Forms order) and check exactly how the spaces are legally assigned, and whether there is a developer lease indicated to exist. And given how often parking and storage show up in CRT (Civil Resolution Tribunal) disputes, that one step to double-check should be in every agent’s workflow.
Low fees? Out. Instead, she’d look to the minutes to see how the council plans the budget and maintenance schedule each year. Do they start planning early, work with current vendors to retain loyalty rates, forecast accurate budgets based on real contract amounts and quotes? Or do they just plunk in numbers with a complete lack of foresight and discernment? A budget-by-the-seat-of-their-pants kind of deal (happens more than you’d think).
And what does council stability look like? Is there enough continuity that processes are in place and knowledge has a succession plan? Or is turnover constant, with maintenance falling between the cracks and every new council starting again? On the other hand, a long-standing council can become incredibly proficient, or incredibly complacent. The minutes usually tell you which.
It’s the same with vendors. Do they have a consistent stable of vendors and trades that they rely on for expert information? Or do they micromanage their trades and retender every little contract to save a hundred bucks? Vendors will price in their wasted quoting time, plus every new contract means time the council has to spend bringing them up to speed on the property.
No special levies? Out. Instead, levies are like vibes, you are looking for frequency and magnitude. Is it the same levy vote that was brought forward three times to get funded? And engineered at least four times to boot? Or did they mention that the project was coming in their last AGM minutes, plan accordingly, and pass the levy (or hybrid CRF-levy) with flying colours?
Each of those levies, regardless of the dollar value, represents a very different experience of community governance. As Madame Agent you’d also look to see if they have some sort of funding strategy over time. Do they have a plan to fund their Contingency Reserve Fund to offset larger projects moving forward so this one-time huge levy doesn’t reoccur? Or is it always levies forever and beyond? Again, each of those styles of governance represents a very different financial experience for the owner.
No court action? Out. Instead, if there happens to be a court proceeding or CRT dispute attached to the Form order, Madame Agent peers inward further, with curiosity. Who started the dispute? What’s it for? For a work order or money? Again, different stories, very different experiences for the new owner.
A council starts a CRT claim to get engineered building envelope repairs pushed forward, after owners vote down a levy resolution twice? Not mad at that. Multiple historical suits against owners or the strata for things like minor alterations or minor bylaw enforcement issues? Maybe a furrowed brow here. Repeated proceedings or complaints to the Human Rights Tribunal, WorkSafe or other agencies related to strata violations? Or major litigation for alleged negligence in maintaining their building parkade/envelope/roof/balconies? Your future is starting to look foggy.
Everyday issues show up in strata documents, too.
It’s all perspective, and size does matter, darrrrrlinnnggg.
And Madame Agent and her tarot cards are not all flashbangs and consultant fees. Looking to the 2026 Canadian Condo Review and the aggregate data available, they confirm that the information in the strata’s minutes, Depreciation Reports and other documents provides meaningful signals about what life will be like in that building financially, absolutely, but also pragmatically day-to-day (think security issues, elevator breakdowns, pest issues, bylaw enforcement, upcoming capital projects).
I asked Thomas Beattie, co-founder and CEO of OctoAI, to provide some doom-and-gloom predictions based on all the data they’ve seen (even Madame Agent, with all her infinite wisdom, trades in her tarot cards for an Eli Report on occasion):
“The number one thing that people are not paying enough attention to is how well funded their [Contingency Fund] reserves are. That is the biggest thing. If they are not paying attention and they don’t realize they are going to get a $100k levy soon, that is life changing. The average annual special levy for some buildings is about $2000 per year, whereas some are zero, and some are going to pay $8000 upwards per year. And for every building that has no levies for the next decade [due to good planning], there are those that haven’t and are paying the price. And smart, informed owners are getting out of those stratas and selecting properties that are planning ahead. And if the REALTOR® hasn’t looked deep enough into the documents, the new buyer is walking into a trap.”
Now unless entrapping clients in ill-fitting homes is your marketing approach, “walking into a trap” is not the experience most buyers want. The documents tell you an awful lot; they can’t tell you if the strata is perfect (that doesn’t exist), but they can tell you it’s the right match for the person standing in front of you, in earnest, asking you to help them find The One.
So, dearest agents, the cards are on the table. What do you see?
