For the second time in less than a month, homeowners at Burnaby’s Mountain Wood strata have tried and failed to convince the B.C. Civil Resolution Tribunal to do something about noise coming from their ceilings.
Joel and Esther Barros-Harty appealed to the tribunal, which resolves minor civil disputes, for an order forcing the strata to fix “common property causing excessive noise in violation of (the strata’s bylaws),” according to a May 12 ruling.
The couple had bought their 45-year-old unit in November 2020 and began lodging complaints two months later about noise coming from their ceiling.
The Barros-Hartys weren’t complaining about their upstairs neighbours but rather about noise coming from “creaking/popping plywood and/or ceiling joists,” according to the ruling.
The strata eventually brought in an acoustical engineer to investigate the complaints.
The study concluded the sound insulation performance of the ceiling met and exceeded the requirements of the National Building Code in force at the time of construction but only met the current BC Building Code minimum sound control recommendations at one of two areas tested.
But tribunal vice-chair J. Garth Cambrey decided those findings weren’t relevant.
He noted the strata doesn’t have a bylaw establishing “quiet hours” but does have one requiring the strata to repair and maintain common property and to repair and maintain parts of a strata unit if those parts relate to the structure of the building.
Cambrey concluded there is no common property, as defined by the Strata Property Act, between the Barros-Hartys’ ceiling and their upstairs neighbours’ floor.
He also concluded the couple hadn’t provided proof there was reasonable cause for the strata to go in and investigate the parts of their unit – the wooden joists and support walls in the ceiling space – that relate to the structure of the building.
Cambrey therefore dismissed the application and ordered the Barros-Hartys to pay the strata $100 in tribunal fees.
“I find the applicants’ request for repair is premature because the overall condition of the building’s structure in the ceiling above (their unit) is unknown,” Cambrey wrote. “The applicants have not established there is a potential problem with the building’s structure, so I find the strata’s duty to investigate has not been triggered. I dismiss the applicants’ claims and this dispute.”
One week earlier, tribunal member Leah Volkers had dismissed a complaint from another Mountain Wood owner who had applied for an order forcing the strata to replace the floors above his unit and pay him $8,000 in damages for loss of enjoyment of his property because of noise.
Volkers sympathised with the “particularly bothersome” noise but concluded the owner had not proven the noise was “objectively intolerable to an ordinary person.”
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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