A Burnaby owner has won a nearly $51,000 Civil Resolution Tribunal battle with her strata over an apartment that hasn't been livable since a fire in August 2018.
Fire broke out inside the fifth-floor apartment at 7077 Beresford St. on the afternoon of Aug. 8, 2018, according to the Burnaby Fire Department, which spoke to the Burnaby NOW at the time.
No one was in the apartment at the time, according to the fire department, but someone was living there, according to a tribunal ruling Thursday.
Mei S. Leung, who owns the unit with her elderly father, said it was an "unauthorized intruder," but the strata said Leung had allowed the occupant to live there against the strata's bylaws.
A fire investigator determined the fire had started in the kitchen, but the fire’s cause was undetermined, according to the ruling.
An earlier tribunal case filed by the strata ended in the tribunal finding Leung was not liable for the blaze because its cause was unknown.
Leung launched her own tribunal complaint, arguing she shouldn't have to pay any costs arising from the fire.
She said she had paid $4,000 of the strata's $5,000 insurance deductible "under protest," and the strata had put chargebacks totalling more than $22,000 onto her account for cleaning, restoration and an increase in the strata’s insurance premium.
Leung said the strata had also wrongfully withheld a nearly $17,000 fire insurance payout, which has prevented her from making the apartment livable and renting it out.
"(The strata) wants Ms. Leung to do the work before it pays Ms. Leung the insurance money. Ms. Leung wants the insurance money so she can start the work," stated the ruling.
The strata generally denied Leung's claims and said it complied with the Strata Property Act and its bylaws.
Tribunal member Micah Carmody disagreed.
He said the strata had acting "significantly unfairly" in withholding the payout.
"I find that doing so violated Ms. Leung's reasonable expectation that she would be able to fund and direct the repairs in her strata lot. In the circumstances," Carmody said.
Leung had also claimed $62,400 in damages for lost rent for the apartment, but Carmody dismissed that claim, ruling she hadn't done enough to mitigate her loss.
Carmody noted she hadn't been renting out the apartment before the fire and didn't remove damaged personal contents from the apartment for several months after the fire.
He said Leung also hadn't demonstrated to the tribunal there was no other reasonable way she could have repaired the apartment without the insurance money.
Carmody ordered the strata to release the insurance money, pay back the insurance deductible, reverse the chargebacks and pay Leung's 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
