A Burnaby strata has been ordered to pay an owner nearly $2,000 after a dispute over the style of her window blinds.
When Rosa Bevacqua was buying her apartment at Tramonto on Hastings Street in the heart of Burnaby Heights in early 2022, she said she got her Realtor to ask the strata manager if she could change the blinds, according to a Civil Resolution Tribunal ruling Wednesday.
Bevacqua told the tribunal the manager had told her she could "change the style of blinds" if the new blinds were cream or white, the ruling said.
After she changed the blinds, however, the strata told her the new window coverings violated the strata's bylaws, which say an owner will not install "any window coverings visible from the exterior of his or her strata lot which are different in size and colour from those of the original building specifications."
The strata told Bevacqua to remove the new blinds and replace them with blinds "similar in nature to other units."
When she didn't, the strata began fining her, and she appealed to the CRT.
She told the tribunal she had relied on the information she got from the strata manager.
Had he not told her she could replace the blinds, she said she wouldn't have done it.
Bevacqua claimed $1,600 for the cost of the new window coverings.
The strata, however, said Bevacqua hadn't made a formal request to the strata council to change her blinds or received written approval to do so.
It also said her new blinds did not comply with its bylaws and it was therefore entitled to require Bevacqua to replace them.
But tribunal member Megan Stewart disagreed.
She ruled the strata had failed to establish Bevacqua had even breached the bylaws before demanding she replace the blinds.
To prove Bevacqua had breached the bylaws, she said the strata would have to have provided evidence of the "original building specifications," such as measurements or a detailed description of the size and colour of the required blinds.
But nowhere in its correspondence to Bevacqua did the strata explain how her new blinds were "different in size and colour from those of the original building specification," according to Stewart.
She also noted they bylaws don’t require owners to seek permission or get written approval to change their window coverings.
Stewart said the strata had treated Bevacqua "significantly unfairly."
"I find the strata failed to establish Mrs. Bevacqua breached the bylaws with her new blinds but required her to replace them anyway, which was wrongful and burdensome," Stewart said.
The strata questioned whether the strata manager had actually told Bevacqua she could change her blinds, but Stewart said she accepted that a voice-to-text transcription Bevacqua had presented as evidence was an accurate account of what the strata manager had told her.
"I find it was objectively reasonable for Mrs. Bevacqua to expect the strata manager’s information to be correct, and to rely on it in replacing her blinds," Stewart said.
She concluded Bevacqua was out of pocket for "at least" the cost of the new blinds, and ordered the strata to pay her $1,600 for the blinds, $149.92 in prejudgment interest and $225 for tribunal fees.
The CRT is an online, quasi-judicial tribunal that hears strata property disputes and small claims cases.
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Email cnaylor@burnabynow.com
