Stratas, Council Approval, and Your Garage Door

I work on a lot of strata properties. Bridgeport, West Cambie, Brighouse townhomes, the older complexes along No. 3 and No. 4 Roads. Roughly 35% of my Richmond service calls are strata-managed buildings.

Half of those calls take longer than the actual repair because somebody has to figure out whose responsibility the door is.

This post is the explainer I send to property managers and strata council chairs when they call asking the same questions. If you live in a Richmond strata and your garage door is making noise, save this.

The fundamental question: common property or limited common property?

Under the BC Strata Property Act, every part of a strata building falls into one of three categories:

Strata lot — your unit. You own it. You maintain it.
Common property — owned by the strata corporation. The roof, the elevators, the parking aisles, the building exterior.
Limited common property (LCP) — owned by the strata but for the exclusive use of one or more designated lots. The classic example: a balcony. It's part of the strata's common property, but only your unit uses it.

Garage doors in Richmond strata buildings can be any of these three things. It depends on the specific strata plan and the original developer's filings.

A standalone garage in a detached strata cluster (rare in Richmond, but exists in some townhouse developments): typically your strata lot.
A garage door that opens to an underground parking stall owned by your lot: typically limited common property.
A garage door on a shared common parkade entrance: typically common property of the strata.

The first thing I ask when a property manager calls is: "Is this a unit-owner garage door or a common-entrance garage door?" Half the time they don't know. Then we have to look at the strata plan and the Form B/Form F documents.

Common-entrance doors (the easy ones)

If the door is on a common parkade entrance — the big roll-up or sectional that lets cars into the underground at, say, a townhouse complex in Bridgeport — it's almost always full common property. The strata pays for repairs. The strata council approves the contractor. The work is funded from the strata's contingency reserve fund or the operating budget.

The hardest part of these jobs is not the door. It's getting three quotes, presenting them at a council meeting, and waiting for the vote. I've had calls where the door was making spring-failure noises for six weeks while council debated which $4,200 quote was "best value."

If you're on a strata council reading this: there is no rule that requires three quotes for under-$5,000 emergency repairs. Most BC strata bylaws give the council discretion for urgent maintenance under a certain dollar threshold. Read your bylaws. Get the door fixed.

LCP doors (the hard ones)

If the door belongs to your specific parking stall — typical in a 4-plex townhouse, an old quadplex, or some specific layouts in larger Richmond complexes — the picture is usually:

The door itself (panels, springs, cables, opener): limited common property, strata maintains, sometimes with cost-recovery from the unit owner depending on bylaws.
The remote, the keypad, the in-unit wall button: the unit owner's stuff, typically.
The track and the framing: usually common property because it's structurally tied to the building envelope.

The bylaws govern who pays. Standard Schedule of Standard Bylaws under the SPA (sections 8–9) put maintenance of LCP on the strata, but individual stratas can amend.

If your strata has filed bylaw amendments shifting LCP maintenance back to the owners, you are personally on the hook for the spring replacement on your parking stall garage door. This is unusual but does exist in some 1990s-era Richmond townhouse complexes that I've worked on.

Form K and your contractor

Form K under the Strata Property Act is the notice strata councils must send to incoming tenants. It's not directly relevant to garage door repairs in most cases — but the strata's bylaws often reference Form K language about alterations to common property.

If you (as a unit owner) want to install a new garage door opener on your LCP door, or upgrade the door itself, you almost certainly need council approval. The threshold for this is laid out in your strata's bylaws. Most Richmond stratas use a variant of the Standard Bylaw 6: "An owner must obtain the written approval of the strata corporation before making an alteration to a strata lot that involves..." — and then a list including doors.

Practically, what this means for you:

Get a quote from a contractor.
Submit the quote to the strata council with a brief note: "I am requesting approval to replace the garage door opener on my unit's parking stall door. The work will be performed by [Steveston Garage Doors / contractor]. The estimated cost is $X. No changes to the door panels, track, or building envelope are required."
Wait for council's written approval. This typically takes 1–4 weeks.
Schedule the work. Provide the contractor's certificate of insurance and WCB clearance to the property manager.

The certificate of insurance and WCB clearance are non-negotiable in Richmond strata work. Every legitimate contractor has them. Mine are on file with most of the larger property managers in town. New contractors need to provide them per-job.

Depreciation reports and the door

Since 2014, BC stratas with 5+ units have been required to obtain a depreciation report (also called a reserve fund study) every 3 years, with an option to defer with a 3/4 vote. The depreciation report lists every major component of the strata, its expected remaining life, and the estimated future replacement cost.

Garage doors and openers appear in almost every Richmond strata's depreciation report. Typical entries:

Sectional overhead doors (residential-type, parkade entrance): expected life 22–28 years, replacement cost $4,500–$8,500 per door
Roll-up commercial-grade entrance doors: expected life 18–24 years, replacement cost $7,500–$14,500 per door
Garage door operators (commercial duty): expected life 12–18 years, replacement cost $1,800–$3,200 per unit

These numbers tend to be conservative. Properly maintained doors in mild Richmond climate often run past the depreciation-report estimate.

If your strata's depreciation report shows the garage door reaching end-of-life within 2 years, this is the time to start collecting reserves and getting quotes. Don't wait until the door is broken. Replacement-on-failure is the most expensive way to do it.

The strata maintenance contract question

About 30% of the larger Richmond strata buildings I service have an annual maintenance contract with a garage-door company. The contract typically includes:

Two scheduled service visits per year (spring/fall)
Lubrication, hinge checks, photo-eye alignment, cable inspection, spring tension check
Discounted parts and labour on any repairs identified during the visit
24-hour emergency response with priority dispatch

Pricing for these contracts in 2026 in Richmond:

1–4 doors (small townhouse complex): $385–$685/year
5–10 doors: $685–$1,285/year
10–20 doors (mid-sized parkade-and-stall combo): $1,285–$2,485/year
20+ doors: quoted per-building, typically $85–$165 per door annually

If your strata doesn't have one of these contracts, ask council why. The math is almost always in favour. A scheduled spring inspection costs maybe $185–$385 per door against the contract. The same job called emergency on a Saturday is $625–$895. Plus the doors that get maintained simply last 30–50% longer.

Cost reality check (2026, Lower Mainland CAD) — strata-specific - Common parkade entrance door, full repair (springs + cables + rollers): $685–$1,485 - Commercial-grade roll-up door spring replacement: $485–$895 per spring - LCP townhouse door, full repair: $385–$725 - Strata maintenance contract (10 doors): $1,285–$1,825/year - New commercial sectional door for parkade entrance, installed: $5,500–$11,500 - Emergency strata response after-hours: $425–$685 plus parts - Annual depreciation-report-supporting inspection (10 doors): $685–$985

The property-manager checklist

If you're a Richmond property manager reading this, here are the five things to have on file for every strata building you manage:

Door inventory. Make, model, install date, panel material, spring type, opener model, last service date. I'll do this inventory for free on a first visit if the strata commits to me as the contractor of record.
Standing council resolution for emergency repairs under a defined dollar threshold (commonly $1,500–$3,500). Without this, urgent repairs wait for council meetings.
Two quoted contractors of record. One primary, one backup. With certificates of insurance and WCB clearance on file.
Documented maintenance schedule. When the doors were last serviced. What was done.
Depreciation report extract for door components, so the next council meeting doesn't have to re-discover the replacement timeline from scratch.

That checklist takes 4 hours of setup work and saves the strata at least one round of emergency-call premium pricing per year. Most strata councils in Richmond don't have it.

A Bridgeport story

I was called to a 28-unit townhouse complex near Cambie Road and No. 5 Road in Bridgeport last March. The shared parkade entrance door had been sticking for three months. Council had been getting quotes since December. They were on their fourth contractor at that point because the first three never returned voicemails after sending a quote.

I went out, looked at the door, found three problems: the bottom panel had a bent track section from somebody backing into it; one spring was at end-of-life (visible gap not yet, but very tight coils — the kind I write about in post 1); and the cables on one side were starting to fray.

Quote: $1,485 for spring pair + cable pair + track straightening + photo-eye realignment + lube. Plus $485 to replace the bottom panel.

The council had already approved $1,800 for spring replacement only with the second contractor (who never showed up). They approved my total quote ($1,970 with the panel) at the next meeting because the property manager attached my full inspection report.

Total time from first phone call to door fully repaired: 11 days, including the council meeting. The previous three contractors had spent 14 weeks combined not doing anything.

The trick wasn't price. The trick was showing up with documentation that gave council confidence to vote yes.

That's the post.