www.bccondos.ca

Contact us Under Tarps Watchdog Forum Condo Law FAQs Toxic Mold Condo Life Cycles Worldwide Condos Condo Link Reviews   Web www.bccondos.ca The real condo buyer's manual: S-478-95 Guideline on Durability (Buildings): the internationally-recognized publication by the Canadian Standards Association that makes a mockery of B.C. leakers and our home warranty protection.

Welcome to Vancouver, host of Olympics 2010! Welcome to Vancouver, host of Olympics 2010! Come on in and meet the locals! Also visit myBeautifulBC.com for more about Vancouver life. GoldMinerPulse - tracking gold and silver miners.

COMING SOON! Construction Risk Management Seminar COMING SOON! Construction risk management seminar by the excellent Pacific Business & Law Institute Feb. 13/08 will assess the effects of B.C.'s rampant housing development approved without a whimper by local planning authorities despite clear floodplain and land slippage warnings. Attendees will also get an update on Canada's rapidly expanding toxic mold litigation as a result of not-so-new links established between respiratory illness and dampness in buildings. More on the seminar and the presenters at Toxic Mold . A Review of Green Roof - A Case Study Our review of the recent book Green Roof - A Case Study ( Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates' Design for the Headquarters of American Society of Landscape Architects) by Christian Werthmann. Or why, books on GREEN roofs and rooftop gardens should NEVER be translated from German unless we import the standards, enforcement and construction expertise imperative to success! Details here. Also see GREEN roofs and ROOFTOP GARDENS -- Green roofs? B.C. 'BILLIES can't be trusted, say insurers! Details here.

Excerpts from The Leaky Condo Boondoggle, the second largest construction disaster in world history, An independent Engineer’s Perspective based on a True Story, by Kenneth G. Dextras, whistle-blower extraordinaire, published in  2002 by Detrax Publishing in New Westminster, B.C.  Find it at Vancouver Public Library. Buy your own copy at www.dextras.com.  Click on our e-mails with this B.C. building maverick, who discussed his book and his patented design for a truly permanent leaky condo repair..

B.C.'s leaky condo crisis continues with a vengeance

…and now intrusive, high-priced building envelope repairs are fraught with controversy.  Please check this site for important consumer information on the liability insurance crisis.  What do insurance companies know about home building in this province that potential condo buyers don’t and should? 

Click here to read an excerpt from the Architectural Institute of B.C.'s letter to the premier for immediate government reforms, including a full-scale review of envelope repair protocols and building standards.  Now click here to read our assurance from Canada ’s new Industry Ministry David Emerson, one of five new Cabinet appointees from B.C., that those issues will finally be considered.  Find out how the National Research Council responds at Watchdog Forum. 

Daily Updates.

How to use this site:

We’ve tried our best to separate information into what seem to us to be logical streams, but the best way to get complete information on your topic is to click on Search at any forum then enter keywords. For example, a search on 'durability' gets 25 results that include the following:

1. How durable is new rainscreen technology
2. My windows leak
3. Tracking the leaky condo crisis plus 22 more.

Building Envelope Repairs:  too much or not enough? 

What the engineers have said:

Overconfidence in new building technology fuelling real estate pep rallies is not shared by at least two engineers at Morrison Hershfield Group Inc. Click on David Scott’s recent heads-up, Driving Beyond the Headlights or Paring-down building envelope design and construction without the benefit of demonstrated field performance at http://www.morrisonhershfield.com/papers/dlsDrivebey.PDF.   Here’s just one excerpt from that paper:

Requirements in codes and standards do not specify a minimum expected service life depending on environmental loads.  It is almost impossible for a designer to figure out what the expected service life of the product might be unless there has been extensive field testing.  Thus, simple reference to a standard does not imply that products meeting the standard will be appropriate to the condition of use. 

Now click on Mark Lawton’s paper, Reacting to Durability Problems With Vancouver Buildings at http://www.morrisonhershfield.com/papers/F8DBM55.pdf, which concludes with the following observations:

Do we really have a method of lasting repair?  Are the measures we have developed and implemented going to provide a lasting solution to a major durability problem with wood framed buildings?…We are concerned that our current designs are overly complex and recognize that there may be ways of providing the required performance with more cost effective systems.  Even with drained cavity, rainscreen systems there are many possible variations in design.  We do not currently have good methods of evaluating the performance of various systems or defining acceptable performance criteria. 

Our experiences in Vancouver have shown that, as an industry, we have limited ability to deliver or even understand the function of wall systems that meet one of the most fundamental envelope performance requirements, keeping the rain out.

For more information about building standards and durability guidelines, please go to Condo Life Cycles at http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=53&highlight=mark+lawton.

What the builders are saying:

To study the impact of the crisis on local contractors, click on Liability Insurance Skyrocketing in The OpenLine Spring, 2003 newsletter published by the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of British Columbia at http://www.icba.bc.ca/openline/v13n1/liability.html.  Here are a few highlights from that report:

Already, contractors in the restoration side of construction are being confronted with crisis situations.  Those fixing leaky condos may not be able to find an insurance company to cover them. Period.  Those few who have coverage this year have found that water egress and mould have been excluded in their current contracts. Being able to find coverage for next year is far from certain.  Many other contractors are discovering that liability insurance in general has become more difficult to find. And if it is available, severe limitations have been added and the cost has skyrocketed.

For more information about the insurance crisis and building trades generally, please go to Condo Link Reviews at http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=110.

What the provincial government is saying:

…Or rather what the government is saying about the Homeowner Protection Office.  Apparently, we’re not the only ones with strong criticisms of this expensive and ineffective reaction to a crisis that is still not contained.  Click here http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=100&highlight=crown+corporations+comittee+committee and scroll down at Condo Link Reviews to read the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations’ second HPO review in November, 2003.

What the Municipal Insurance Association said:

For the full report of July, 2002 on the Municipal Insurance Association’s Building Bylaw Project initiated after the large negligence award in the Delta decision (See Condo Link Reviews ), click here..  This 85-page report prepared by Thomas Barnes of Barnes, Twinings & Short, ultimately recommends reducing a public inspection process that has already proved woefully inadequate in preventing leaky construction.  Municipalities that adopt the report will offer consumers even less assurance that our homes meet what little there is of provincial home building standards.

For more information about the report and its expected impact, click on the e-mail we received Nov. 17 from the insurance association’s executive director posted at Condo Law FAQs. Follow the links to articles and reports that discuss the tension between private and public buiilding professionals.

Read how the District of North Vancouver’s city clerk personally warned the local builders’ association of a staff recommendation to approve a bylaw incorporating these changes before its introduction at the council meeting.  Go to Condo Law FAQs and follow the links.

And finally, what the B.C. Building Envelope Council asked us:

Read the e-mail we received not long ago from council president David Kayll, who invited us to make a presentation, at http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=68&highlight=kayll.  See the questions we put to the council in our e-mail to Phil Sunderland at http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58&highlight=phil+sunderland.  Make submissions for a meeting by writing to editor@bccondos.ca.  We’re happy to post photos, too.  Have a look at a few we took recently at Under Tarps. 

In view of so much uncertainty among the experts, are there any alternatives to building envelope repairs?

Click here (Condo Law FAQs) to read our e-mail asking that very question of one of the few law firms that provides free online information on leaky condo issues…And that’s all she wrote.  Hope Clark, Wilson is doing a better job for its strata council clients than it has for us. Now compare the wide variety of reasonably priced legal services available to Australian condo owners at  http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=114 with a cash-grab proposal by the B.C. Law Society that could mean consumers hiring lawyers to protect ourselves from lawyer-real estate networks.  Click here  to tell Attorney General Geoff Plant what you think of the proposal and how lawyers have helped you either with the conveyance of your leaky property and/or any litigation concerning it.

I think my leaky, moldy condo is now making me sick.  What should I do?

Click here ( Toxic Mold forum) to read about the new report Health Canada is preparing for release later this summer on the link between indoor mold and human health.

Is leaky construction a problem peculiar to B.C., particularly in the Lower Mainland?

Not at all.  Click on Worldwide Condos to read about New Zealand’s current disaster and a royal commission in Australia on construction practices there which may result in criminal fraud prosecutions.  You can also click on Condo Life Cycles for reports, case studies and photos of building failures from other jurisdictions.

Buyers beware.

I’ve read CMHC’s cautionary Condominium Buyers’ Guide at http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/bureho/buho/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=54585 and I still want to buy a condo.  What other information might assist me?

1.      Go to one of the two law libraries, which are both open to the public, and ask for the Continuing Legal Education series on leaky condos.  Click here for a cursory view of titles.  These will give you some idea of the risk a buyer undertakes in a B.C. condo purchase. 

2.      Review disclosure statements and strata records – minutes from council meetings as well as correspondence – with a condo lawyer before you make an offer.  To find a lawyer with construction and condo expertise, go to the B.C. Law Society’s website. 

3.      It is vitally important for the buyer to obtain a full, accurate account of the strata’s current state of repair and predicted service life, including maintenance obligations on which monthly maintenance fees should be based.  If there is any question regarding the documentation of the building’s construction or performance, consult with your lawyer about obtaining an inspection by a qualified professional.  Inadequate privately-contracted inspections have meant disaster for many B.C. purchasers.  For more information on inspections, click on Condo Law FAQs. 

4.      Go to Watchdog Forum for material on technical building audits and reserve fund studies.  Does your complex have a professionally designed and well funded maintenance and repair plan firmly in place?  How often are professional inspections conducted at all areas of the property – common, limited common and in-suite?  How long has this been the practice?  What is the procedure for reporting damage?  Has it been followed?  If there are bylaws, rules and procedures you like at the complex, how are they enforced and how easy or difficult would it be to change any of them?  Answers to these questions may reveal hidden costs that should be factored into your offer.

5.      Look up your strata corporation, the developer, architect, builders, realtors and property management firm at the Courts of British Columbia website:  http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/.  Click on Search Judgments, type in names and study the litigation history of your complex and its players.  Listings here may also reveal hidden costs that should be factored into your offer.

6.      To find out how difficult it is to get out of bad deal, type in ‘caveat emptor’ at the Courts of British Columbia Search Judgments database and read the sad stories of construction defects discovered too late.  On Aug. 6, 2004, we got 25 hits for this year alone.

Renting a leaky condo?

Think again.  Assess the risks of both landlords and tenants at our Condo Law FAQs forum, where officers from two provinicial residential tenancy offices discuss the effect of the Residential Tenancy Act s. 10.

Who and what is www.bccondos.ca?

We’re a non-profit association of leaky condo owners, navigating our wet way through the complex maze of legislation, case law and construction standards and practice that make up B.C.’s enigmatic real estate industry.  Our efforts are focused on disseminating information on all aspects of the leaky condo crisis from a variety of sources to allow consumers to make the best choices in a bad situation and in so doing to clear a path for legislative reform.

If you like what you see at this website, please feel free to link to us, tell your friends, put up signs.  All the information we refer to is publicly available, either at libraries or online.  Please let us know if you find any discrepancies or problems with any of our links.