Broken flower pot fiasco forces frustrated owner to sue his strata

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The owner of a unit in a strata building sued the corporation after his partner broke a flower pot, and it charged him for four.

In this BC Civil Resolution Tribunal case, Barie Regan says that the strata charged him improperly $1,921.50 to replace four large flower pots at the entrance of the building.

While he didn’t dispute that his partner damaged the pot, he also says that the damage wasn’t bad enough to justify replacing it.

The strata said that it did require replacement and that because it couldn’t find a suitable replacement for the damaged one, which matched three other pots, it had to replace all four.

In the decision, the tribunal looked at the evidence of how broken the flower pot actually was.

In July 2021, video evidence showed Regan’s partner maintaining one of the plants in a flower pot, and a photograph was taken of the pot tipped on its side with a plant and soil from the pot “strewn about the area.”

The tribunal found that Regan’s partner was likely responsible.

According to the strata, the building supervisor found that the flower pot was cracked in two locations and that those cracks “weakened the pot’s integrity.”

It added that the pot would “not be able to withstand changes in temperature and seasonal moisture because of those cracks.”

In September of the same year, Regan was hit with a chargeback from his strata lot account for $1,921.50.

Regan’s position is that there was no evidence that the flower pot broke, and the tribunal agreed with him, thanks to photographs provided by the strata.

Ultimately, the tribunal sided with Regan, adding that the strata could not prove that Regan’s partner damaged the flower pot to the point that it couldn’t be reused.

The tribunal member overseeing the case ordered the strata to remove the $1,921.50 chargeback from Regan’s strata lot account and also required the strata to pay $225 for Regan’s tribunal fees.

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