Bond v. The Owners, Strata Plan NW 2671, 2019 BCCRT 344

WALKING IN A MINEFIELD BLINDFOLDED

 Dianne Bond
April 15, 2021, at 1:38 AM. (Facebook post)

Bringing a matter before the CRT as an owner of strata property is like circling blindfolded through a mine field, just to end up further oppressed and betrayed. At least for me and many others - who manage to survive.

GROUP MEMBER
Why do you say that? Please describe the experience.

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Dianne Bond
Author

It will take me a while but I'll do a chronology.

April 17, 2021
Dianne Bond
Author

Okay, I'm glad you asked. Here it is in a nutshell.

The CRT's actions do not match its words. Its credibility is rock bottom, and its retaliation is sky high.

The CRT routinely deprives owners of strata property of equal protection under the law. It claims that Canada's Charter of Rights does not apply to strata governance, but in crazy making contrast, it perversely cites respect for "democratic government" when systemically deferring to stratas in willful blindness to fact and law. 

The CRT continually makes misrepresentations that parties are self represented, but covertly gives "a wink and a nod" to stratas having lawyers, while it is only owners who are actually self represented.  

It claims to apply principles of fairness - but making matters unfair beyond belief - the CRT granted the strata legal representation as "special" circumstances to use litigation defence insurance against me - paid for in good faith with my strata fees to protect me as a named insured under s.155 of the SPA. Then to make the misrepresentation totally ludicrous, it pretends the strata is "not charging dispute-related expenses against the owner." Making the matter even worse, the CRT granted the strata representation without an appealable preliminary decision, or notice to me, and made a decision to proceed straight to adjudication.

When I objected, the CRT told me that the respondent and I would negotiate while awaiting assignment of a case manager for facilitation. In reality my strata does not negotiate and never has.

 

Facilitation resulted in the CRT recommending and making amendments to my claim, which included a request for compensation in the amount of $5,000. In contrast, my own amendments were submitted on March 20, 2018.

The CRT asked me to submit evidence in a certain way, then when I submitted it as requested, it asked me to resubmit it another way. Then it asked both parties to reduce the evidence. I complied and reduced my evidence, but the respondent didn't - with no penalty or correction. This left me even more disadvantaged than ever.

The CRT website also said it could compel disclosure of evidence, but my request for same was ignored the same as my amended Dispute Notice, like it didn't exist. Litigating against the strata before the CRT was very much like going naked in a blindfold before an armed enemy.

On March 22, 2018 the CRT confirmed receipt and delivery of my March 20, 2018 email attaching my own amendments to my Dispute Notice, including my claim for a s.133 remedy for nuisance and significantly unfair treatment in contravention of our Use of Property bylaws and s.76 short term exclusive use provisions of the SPA.

 

Then the CRT erroneously delivered its own amendment to the respondent instead of mine, persistently held it out as mine, and ignored my complaints when I noticed what happened.

So the adjudicator's decision was based on the facilitator's amendment mischaracterized as mine, and my own complaints and claims were perpetually ignored. 

 

Shockingly, the CRT told me that Garth Cambrey, who it knew to be the historical source of the dispute as illustrated below, would be the adjudicator.

I complained, and someone else was named, but the CRT changed the actual adjudicator, as a surprise, without notice or explanation. 

My amended application requested a s.133 remedy for illegal, unreasonable, interference with my use and enjoyment of property by a new owner and council acting in contravention of both our use of property bylaws and the SPA's provisions for short term exclusive use of common property under s.76. All of which the CRT ignored.

With no explanation for this whole chain of conduct other than retaliation for criticizing adjudicator misconduct, the CRT seemed to be yanking my chain for no good reason.

This new owner purchased on April 28, 2016, and their interference with my use and enjoyment of common property in violation of our Use of Property bylaws and the SPA's short term exclusive use of common property restrictions took place well within the 2-year limitation period, yet Kate Campbell dismissed my claim for relief as being out of time!!

To ignore fundamental claims is incorrect in law, but the CRT has immunity, and everyone who is paying attention can see that I have no effective access to justice as a person on a fixed income with PTSD and a blatantly obvious inability to represent myself effectively. 

Adding insult to injury, Kate Campbell ignored the word “appropriate” in the Limitation Act with respect to the disproportionate cost of bringing contraventions by previous offenders to trial being at least 10 times more than the comparatively modest cost of a $3,000 remedy. To ignore the word appropriate is incorrect. The word is in the legislation for a reason.

The CRT also turned a willfully blind eye to the significance of unfairness, damage, and nuisance ongoing ever since Garth Cambrey violated the Condominium Act in 1990, as shown, when he was our strata agent. Any computer could have been a better judge.

Garth and Kate are both vice chairs of the CRT, so Kate falsely claims that the strata owns the common property to dismiss my claims of adverse possession. That is incorrect in law, which is another reason why CRT decisions have zero value as a precedent. Adverse possession is an underlying interest in land that the CRT has no expertise, or jurisdiction to decide, and it's the adjudicator's job to know that.

In the whole of the circumstances, Kate Campbell ignored fact and law to treat unjustly the only party acting lawfully, perversely deferring to the strata, the party who was persistently acting unlawfully. 

The result of this fiasco was patently unreasonable, and to distract attention away from her own misconduct, Kate Campbell disgracefully adds insult to injury by saying that my claim for relief, the law abiding victim, does not reach the level of "reprehensible." WTF!!

The CRT claims to apply principles of law, but what it actually does is write narratives to support stratas acting unlawfully and retaliate against those who dare to criticize CRT misconduct. 

I was not surprised that Kate Campbell contravened the law because CRT adjudicators do so routinely. I actually expected some push back due to my posting reports on adjudicator misconduct in other cases.
I just didn't expect such flagrant and blatant retaliation against constructive criticism that was not only DESPERATELY required, but repeatedly invited by the CRT.

Kate Campbell's decision to allow contraventions of governing enactments THAT CONTINUE TO SPEAK to continue in perpetuity demonstrates bias and fundamental injustice that is sickening, to say the least.

 

You would never know any of this by reading the decision published in CanLii 

but no matter what BS is manufactured - the facts speak for themselves.

Multiple wrongs do not make a right - and never will... 
Systemic deference to strata councils promotes increasingly alarming contraventions.

 

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Looking at it now in hindsight, I think I'll copy this to BC's Ombudsperson, just for the record. For whatever it's worth, I think I'll also ask the tribunal to reopen my case in order to cure a jurisdictional defect in accordance with section 51(3) of the CRTA, in that Kate Campbell ignored the primary issue and that denial of natural justice made the whole proceeding ineffective, to say the least. Not that there is any reasonable prospect of a meaningful response. As long as they all get paid out of the same taxpayer pocket, oversight is just a lot of posturing, like the left hand investigating the right hand.