Need to Know - Who's Who - What's What

In the past owner lists were distributed to everyone annually.

Distributing owner lists aids in communication, empowers owners, and encourages open honest government and informed decision making.

Owners should at the very least have the names, phone numbers, and unit numbers of each member of council. Without a phone list we have to call the strata manager for everything, and strata fees go up accordingly. In fact, I think that all owners, not just members of council, should be able to call the owners surrounding them for the sake of safety, if nothing else.

In this regard, I gave the strata express consent to release my contact information to other owners, not just for this reason, but for many reasons. I believe that express consent enhances transparency and trust. I know that if I'm not proud of a role I played, I may need to change it. I may owe someone an explanation or an apology.

In general it seems reasonable to me for strata owners to have a list of occupant names and contact information in order to deal with emergencies, organize nominating committees, phoning committees, neighbourhood socials, or just to communicate as quickly and easily as possible whenever necessary.

In the past when I was alarmed by unusual crashing sounds made by visiting grandchildren rough housing above us, I just phoned upstairs to ask if everyone was okay. Without the phone number I would have to call the police.

When water came down into our unit from overflowing bathtubs and washing machines in the unit above I was able to phone upstairs to tell them to turn off the water. I also had to phone to warn them if we would be away because every holiday meal that they prepared flooded our kitchen when they used their garborator.

If we had a current list of owner phone numbers now, or if keys to the gates on Rambler Way were provided as required, I would not have had to drive 2 kilometers just to tell Mae Reid, my upstairs neighbour, about the dog she left barking for a half hour at 7 o'clock in the morning, leaving my husband with only 3 hours of sleep.

Most of the personal information is a public record readily available to anyone who visits the Land Title Office in New Westminster. In addition, from January 1 to March 31 each year everyone's address and property value is posted on the BC Assessment Authority website, and every property's address, assessed value, sales history, and owner's name is available to anyone who visits the assessment office in Burnaby. This information is all in the public domain.

About half the owner names, addresses, and phone numbers are still in the phone book and are instantly available to anyone on the internet who performs a reverse address search on Canada 411. Just click the link at the bottom of this post and type 1215 Lansdowne, Coquitlam, BC (with no unit number or street type) A similar list is available on the Telus website. As more people get cell phones, however, less are listed in the phone book, and the more important a current owner list becomes.

Unfortunately, rather than promote express consent to circulate contact information, it has become generally accepted practice through the strata industry for strata managers and council members to withhold owner lists and thwart the Strata Property Act's requirements for disclosure of strata records under the exaggerated guise of privacy.

Nothing in the Privacy Act should contradict the access and disclosure provisions of the Strata Property Act. In fact, the first time I attended a strata manager's office to review the strata records, the first thing she provided to me was all of the names, addresses, and occupations of every single owner before burying the few pages that I wanted by manufacturing 900 redacted copies of extraneous material that nobody would have any reasonable interest in, but omitting the most important material.

As far as privacy goes, it is breached more by strata managers and council members negligence than anything else. Each time I have reviewed strata records under the high priced eyes of strata managers they have negligently breached privacy, without exception.

Al Macleod broadcast all the email addresses of owners to other owners, apparently in inadvertent error, not just once, but multiple times. Strata management has repeatedly provided embarrassing identifying information, which one would reasonably expect to be protected, while at the same time withholding owner lists and denying access to normal correspondence.

I think that unduly obstructing communication and access to strata records is not in the best interests of the strata corporation, or the owners. The history of Sunridge Estates has proven that the benefit of protecting artificial privacy is far outweighed by the detriment of shielding corruption.

RELATED LINKS:
http://findaperson.canada-411.ca/reverse_address
http://www.whitepages.com/14542/reverse_address