A local congregation has won a B.C. Supreme Court tussle with the B.C. Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church over a North Burnaby church.
The synod, a provincial body that oversees 48 congregations in B.C., owns a 57 per cent stake in a church and land at 1005 Kensington Ave., according to court documents.
It wants to sell the property and divide the proceeds with the Vancouver Chinese Lutheran Church (VCLC), which has a 43 per cent stake in it and a congregation that still worships there.
The congregation – not one of the 48 churches the synod oversees – doesn’t want to be forced to sell.
The synod petitioned the court in August for an order to sell the property by the end of October 2017, so the proceeds could be split, but VCLC applied to have the proceedings stayed.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Carla Forth ruled in favour of VCLC last month, dismissing the synod’s petition and saying the dispute needed to be resolved according to a 2005 agreement between VCLC and Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, a synod-affiliated congregation that used to worship on the property but has since dissolved.
VCLC moved to the church in 1996.
At that time, Faith owned the whole property, which included a sanctuary, fellowship hall, pastor office, general office and separate residence building.
To fund an expansion in 2005, the two congregations entered into a co-ownership and management agreement.
VCLC paid about $860,000 toward the project and was given a 43 per cent ownership stake.
“I find it unlikely that the VCLC would have agreed to such a substantial investment had it known that within seven years a non-original party would be seeking a forced sale of 53 per cent of the property without its consent,” Forth wrote in a Dec. 18 ruling.
When Faith officially disbanded because of declining numbers on Dec. 28, 2011, it failed to transfer its legal interest in the property to the synod.
The synod didn’t acquire its share in the property until 2014, when Faith applied to the Registrar of Companies for the Province of British Columbia to be resurrected for 120 days and then transferred its ownership.
The synod, which has gotten six offers on the property but hasn’t been able to sell, argued it was not a party to the 2005 ownership agreement and wasn’t bound by its terms.
Forth disagreed.
She stayed the synod’s petition and awarded court costs to VCLC.
“The dispute between the parties is properly a matter to be considered pursuant to terms reflected in the 2005 agreement,” she said.
Signs outside the Kensington property suggest it also houses the Bethany Korean Church and the Faith Lutheran Preschool.
