Strata & Condo Electrical Work in Metro Vancouver: What You Can and Can't Do
Strata & Condo Electrical Work in Metro Vancouver: What You Can and Can't Do
An owner in a Brentwood tower buys an EV, orders a Level 2 charger, and books an electrician for the following Tuesday. The parking stall is theirs. The charger is theirs. The install looks like a two-hour job.
Then the concierge mentions that the parkade is common property, the electrician asks who's pulling the permit, and the strata manager explains that alterations need council approval — and the next council meeting is in five weeks.
Nothing has gone wrong. The owner just didn't know that a strata electrical job has three separate gates, and that the charger was never the hard part.
The short answer
The dividing line is your strata lot versus common property. Swapping a fixture or a switch inside your unit usually needs no council approval. Anything touching the wiring inside the walls, the building's panels, the parkade, corridors or the exterior is common property — and that needs written strata council approval before work starts, plus an electrical permit, plus a licensed contractor. All three, not one of the three. Your strata's own bylaws govern, so read them before assuming anything.
Strata lot vs common property
Almost every strata electrical question comes back to this, and most disputes come from getting it wrong.
Broadly: your strata lot is the finished interior surfaces inward — the fixtures, devices and cover plates you can see. Common property is the wiring inside the walls, the building's electrical service and panels, corridors, the parkade, the exterior, and generally any electrical infrastructure serving more than one unit.
Then there's limited common property — your balcony, your parking stall, your storage locker. You have exclusive use of it. It's still common property. That distinction catches more people than any other, because a parking stall feels like yours in every way that matters right up until you want to attach something to the wall.
↔ Swipe the table sideways to see all columns.
| The work | Usually | Council approval? |
|---|---|---|
| Replacing a light fixture on an existing circuit | Strata lot | Usually not |
| Swapping a switch or dimmer | Strata lot | Usually not |
| Adding a new circuit or outlet | Touches in-wall wiring | Yes |
| Anything involving the unit's electrical panel | Often common property | Yes |
| EV charger in your parking stall | Limited common property | Yes |
| Balcony lighting or outlets | Limited common property | Yes |
| Anything in the parkade, corridors or lobby | Common property | Yes |
| Building service or main panels | Common property | Yes — strata project |
| In-suite renovation moving wiring | Touches common property | Yes |
General guidance only. Your strata plan and bylaws determine the boundaries in your specific building, and some stratas require approval for work this table lists as usually exempt. Read your bylaws, and when the answer isn't obvious, ask the strata rather than guessing.
↑ Back to topThe three approvals people confuse
This is where most strata electrical projects go sideways. An owner gets one of these and reasonably assumes it covers the others.
Three Separate Gates — All Three Apply
Getting one doesn't get you the others
1. Strata council approval
In writing, before work begins. Required under the Strata Property Act and your bylaws.
2. Electrical permit
From Technical Safety BC or your municipality, depending on your address.
3. Licensed contractor
Mandatory for any work on common property. No owner exception exists.
That last point is worth dwelling on. BC does allow homeowners to pull their own electrical permit in limited circumstances — but the exception applies to fully detached dwellings that are your principal residence. It does not extend to strata property, attached homes, or common property under any circumstances. If you live in a condo, that route was never available to you.
↑ Back to topWhat you can do without council approval
A short list, and it comes with a caveat.
- Replacing a light fixture with another on the same existing circuit
- Swapping a switch, dimmer or receptacle for a like-for-like replacement
- Changing cover plates
- Plugging in appliances, lamps and anything cord-connected
- Smart bulbs and plug-in smart devices that don't touch the wiring
The caveat: your bylaws may be stricter than the general rule, and a fair number are. Some stratas require notification for any electrical work at all. Some require an approved contractor list. Reading your bylaws takes twenty minutes and it's the cheapest possible insurance.
Council approval and an electrical permit answer different questions. Even where the strata doesn't care, BC's permit rules still apply — and adding or modifying a circuit needs a permit regardless of who owns what. Our city-by-city permit guide covers which authority handles your building.
What always needs approval
Anything that touches common property. In practice that covers more than most owners expect, because the wiring inside your walls generally isn't yours even though the walls feel like they are.
Where the change significantly alters the use or appearance of common property, the Strata Property Act may require a three-quarters vote at a general meeting rather than a simple council decision. That's what occasionally turns a straightforward request into an AGM agenda item, and it's why timing matters — a five-week wait for a council meeting is one thing, waiting for the annual general meeting is another.
What a complete application looks like
Councils reject applications more often for being incomplete than for being unreasonable. From what we see, a request that gets approved usually includes:
- A clear description of the work and exactly what it touches
- The contractor's name and confirmation they're licensed and insured
- Confirmation that a permit will be pulled, and by whom
- Proof of liability insurance
- Who bears the cost of installation, ongoing electricity and future maintenance
- What happens if the unit is sold
Councils are volunteers. An application that answers their questions before they have to ask gets through considerably faster than one that doesn't.
↑ Back to topEV charging in a strata
The most common strata electrical request in Metro Vancouver right now, and the one with the most misconceptions attached.
"The building doesn't have capacity" is usually untested
This is the reason most requests get declined, and in our experience it's frequently an assumption rather than a finding. It means nobody has run a load calculation.
Load management changes the answer. An EV energy management system lets multiple chargers share the building's available capacity — drawing less when demand is high, more when it isn't. It's what allows a building to add chargers without a full service upgrade, and it's usually the difference between a feasible project and an unaffordable one.
If your council has said the building can't support charging, the useful follow-up question is: based on what assessment?
The first charger is cheap. The seventh is expensive.
Here's the pattern we see in buildings that approve chargers one at a time.
The first owner installs a charger. Straightforward. So does the second and third. Then somewhere around the sixth or seventh request, the building runs out of easy capacity, and that owner is told they need to fund infrastructure work the earlier owners never paid for. It's not fair, and it generates exactly the kind of dispute councils dread.
Planning the parkade once — sizing the infrastructure for the whole building rather than for whoever asks first — avoids that entirely. That's what an EV Ready plan is for, and it attracts substantially more funding than piecemeal installs.
The rebates
Per charger, multi-unit buildings
Up to $2,00050% of cost per networked Level 2 charger, to a maximum of $14,000 per complex.
EV Ready projects
Up to $137,000For buildings electrifying parking to a minimum of one space per unit.
Multi-unit buildings need pre-approval from BC Hydro before equipment is purchased. Buying first is the most common way a building forfeits the rebate, and there's no route back.
Effective 15 July 2026: standalone charger rebates for multi-unit residential buildings require either an EV Ready plan, an electrical planning report, or a CleanBC MURB Retrofit opportunity assessment. EV Ready plan applicants must obtain pre-approval and submit final approval within nine months of confirmation.
Funding is first-come, first-served while it lasts. Confirm current amounts and conditions on BC Hydro's incentives page before committing to anything.
The order to do this in
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1
Read your bylaws Find out what your specific strata requires before approaching anyone.
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2
Get the building assessed A load calculation or electrical planning report establishes actual capacity — the fact everything else depends on.
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3
Apply for pre-approval Before purchasing equipment, not after.
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4
Submit a complete application to council Contractor, insurance, permit, cost responsibility, and what happens on sale.
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5
Permit, install, inspect Licensed contractor pulls the permit with the right authority and books the inspection.
We work with strata councils and property managers across Brentwood, Lougheed, Burquitlam, Lower Lonsdale and downtown Vancouver. If your building is at the "can we even do this" stage, that's the assessment we'd start with. Call Kato Electrical: 604-239-5752
Electrical planning reports
Worth knowing about even if EV charging isn't on your building's agenda, because a lot of stratas need one and don't realise it.
An electrical planning report assesses a building's existing electrical capacity and establishes what additional load it can carry — EV charging, heat pumps, future demand. Under the Strata Property Act, electrical planning reports are mandated for strata corporations of five or more units.
Since 15 July 2026, an electrical planning report is one of the three things that can unlock standalone EV charger rebates for a multi-unit building. So a report many stratas are already required to have also satisfies a rebate condition. If your building needs one anyway, getting it done opens a door rather than just ticking a box. Electrical planning reports →
Capacity and older buildings
Metro Vancouver's strata stock spans six decades, and the electrical reality differs enormously across it.
Newer towers — the Brentwood, Lougheed, Burquitlam and Metrotown developments of the past fifteen years — were generally built with more service capacity and, increasingly, with EV-ready provisions. The constraint in these buildings is usually distribution rather than raw capacity.
Pre-1980 low-rises across Burnaby, New Westminster, North Vancouver and the West End are a different conversation. Service was sized for the loads of the era. In-suite panels are often small. Adding meaningful load can mean upgrading building infrastructure, which is a strata project rather than an owner's.
Buildings from the 1960s and 70s may also have aluminum branch circuit wiring, which carries its own insurance and remediation considerations — see our aluminum wiring guide.
↑ Back to topWho issues your permit
Strata or not, the permit question is answered by your address.
These cities issue their own electrical permits: Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, the City and District of North Vancouver, West Vancouver and Maple Ridge.
These go through Technical Safety BC: Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster, Richmond, Delta, Squamish and Whistler.
Richmond is the one that trips people up — it holds a gas-only delegation, so Richmond electrical permits still go to the province. Full detail in our city-by-city permit guide.
↑ Back to topWork done without approval
It happens, usually without any intent to cut corners — an owner genuinely didn't know the wiring in their wall wasn't theirs.
What follows can include:
- Restoration at the owner's cost. The strata can require common property to be returned to its original condition.
- Liability for related damage. If the alteration causes a problem, that generally sits with the owner.
- Insurance exposure. Unpermitted electrical work can void a claim traced back to it.
- Discovery at sale. Alterations are disclosed on the Form B Information Certificate, which a buyer's lawyer reviews. Unapproved work has a habit of surfacing at the worst possible moment.
If work has already been done, raising it with the strata is almost always better than waiting for it to be found. Retroactive approval is a conversation. Discovery during a conveyance is a problem.
Kato Electrical works with strata buildings across Metro Vancouver — capacity assessments, electrical planning reports, EV Ready plans, and the documentation councils actually need to approve a request. Licensed, insured, and used to the process.
Sources & further reading
What strata owners, councils and property managers ask us most.
It depends whether the work touches common property. Replacing a fixture, switch or receptacle on an existing circuit inside your strata lot generally doesn't need approval — though your bylaws may say otherwise.
Anything involving wiring inside the walls, building panels, the parkade, corridors or the exterior is common property, and that needs written council approval before work begins. Where the change significantly alters common property's use or appearance, the Strata Property Act may require a three-quarters vote at a general meeting.
Broadly, the strata lot is the finished interior surfaces inward — the fixtures, devices and cover plates inside your unit. Common property covers the wiring inside the walls, the building's service and panels, corridors, parkade, exterior, and generally any infrastructure serving more than one unit.
Limited common property — a balcony, parking stall or storage locker — is still common property despite your exclusive use of it. The practical consequence: an owner who alters common property without approval can be required to restore it at their own expense.
A council reviews the request and can decline, but a refusal should be reasonable and grounded in something specific rather than general reluctance.
Most refusals rest on a claim that the building lacks capacity — and that claim is frequently untested, because nobody has commissioned a load calculation or an electrical planning report. Load management systems let multiple chargers share existing capacity without a building service upgrade, which resolves the objection in many buildings. If your request was declined, ask what the decision was based on.
It assesses a building's existing electrical capacity and establishes what additional load it can support — EV charging, heat pumps, future demand. Under the Strata Property Act, electrical planning reports are mandated for strata corporations of five or more units, so many buildings need one regardless of their charging plans.
There's also a rebate connection: since 15 July 2026, standalone EV charger rebates for multi-unit buildings require either an EV Ready plan, an electrical planning report, or a CleanBC opportunity assessment. A report you already need can unlock funding you want.
Through CleanBC Go Electric, multi-unit residential buildings can receive up to $2,000 per networked Level 2 charger — 50% of cost, to a maximum of $14,000 per complex. EV Ready projects, electrifying parking to at least one space per unit, can receive up to $137,000.
Pre-approval from BC Hydro is required before equipment is purchased — buying first is the most common way buildings forfeit the rebate. Since 15 July 2026, standalone charger rebates also require an EV Ready plan, an electrical planning report or a CleanBC assessment. Funding is first-come, first-served.
Work inside your strata lot is normally your cost. Work on common property is normally the strata corporation's, funded through fees or a special levy.
Disputes cluster around alterations to common property requested by and benefiting one owner — an EV charger serving a single stall being the obvious example. Stratas commonly approve these subject to a written agreement: the owner pays installation, ongoing electricity and future maintenance, and accepts responsibility for the alteration. Get it in writing before work starts, because the obligation typically transfers with the unit on sale.
The strata can require the owner to restore the common property at their own expense, and the owner may be liable for related costs.
Beyond that, unpermitted electrical work carries the usual consequences — an insurer can deny a claim traced to it, and it surfaces during a sale. Alterations are disclosed on the Form B Information Certificate that a buyer's lawyer reviews, so unapproved work tends to come to light at the least convenient moment. If it's already been done, raising it with the strata beats waiting for discovery.
Strata electrical work isn't complicated so much as sequenced. Find out what's yours and what's the building's, get approval before anyone starts, and use a contractor who has been through the process rather than one who'll discover it mid-job.
And if your council has told you the building can't support what you're asking for — find out whether anyone has actually checked.
Kato Electrical works across Metro Vancouver: