Who insures the house in a bare land strata?

Generally you do. A strata corporation must insure the common property and any buildings shown on the strata plan, and in a bare land strata there usually are no buildings on the plan, only surveyed lots. That means your home is your own insurance responsibility in a way it is not in a conventional condominium. Confirm it against the strata's insurance summary rather than assuming, because arrangements vary.

What do bare land strata fees pay for?

Infrastructure rather than a building envelope. Typically the private roads, in-ground water and sewer lines, street lighting, common landscaping, snow clearing and the strata's insurance and administration. What they do not cover is your roof, your siding or your windows, which is the main difference from a condominium fee.

Are bare land strata fees lower than condo fees?

Often, because the strata is not maintaining a building envelope for you. That does not make the ownership cheaper overall, because you are carrying your own roof, exterior and systems directly instead of through a fee. Compare total cost of ownership, not the fee line.

Can the strata tell me what to build or how to landscape?

Yes, within the bylaws. Bare land strata bylaws commonly govern building design, materials, colours, fencing, landscaping standards, RV and boat parking and how long a lot can sit vacant. Some also impose a build-out deadline on an empty lot. Read the bylaws before you buy, particularly if you are buying a lot to build on.

Why does the road matter so much in a bare land strata?

Because it is usually the largest single common asset and there is no municipality standing behind it. A private road that needs resurfacing or rebuilding is paid for entirely by the owners, through the contingency reserve fund or a special levy. On a hillside development with steep grades and drainage structures, it can be the biggest number in the depreciation report.

Does a bare land strata need a depreciation report?

Yes, under the same rules as any other strata. Five or more lots means a report every five years with no option to defer. What it covers is different: roads, drainage, water and sewer lines and retaining structures rather than a roof and an envelope. Those are exactly the components people forget to ask about.

What is a bare land strata in BC

Q: What is a bare land strata in BC?

A strata where the lots are defined by survey markers rather than by the walls of a building. You own the land and the house standing on it, and the strata owns the roads, the in-ground services and the common areas. It is governed by the Bare Land Strata Regulations, B.C. Reg. 75/78, under the Strata Property Act. Common in Penticton hillside developments.

Q: Can the strata come onto my lot?

For common property services, generally yes. The Bare Land Strata Regulations require easements so the strata corporation can enter a strata lot to install, repair, maintain or replace common property pipes or lines running on or under it. So a water main crossing your yard stays the strata's responsibility and the strata keeps the right to reach it.

By Dan Jones · September 12, 2026

Bottom line: in a bare land strata your lot is defined by survey markers rather than by the walls of a building, so you own the land and the house on it outright while the strata owns the roads, the in-ground services and the common areas. That single difference changes almost everything downstream. Your fees buy infrastructure instead of a building envelope. Your house is generally your own insurance responsibility rather than the strata’s. And the biggest number in the depreciation report is usually the road, because a private road has no municipality standing behind it. It is a form of ownership that suits a lot of people very well. It is also the one I most often find buyers have misunderstood, usually in the direction of assuming it means fewer rules than it does.

I am Dan Jones, a REALTOR with Royal LePage Locations West in Penticton, licence number 1118346. I was a Red Seal journeyman carpenter from 1980 and built houses for twenty-four years before I was licensed in 2004, which is useful here because the components a bare land strata actually owns, roads, drainage, retaining structures and buried services, are civil works rather than finishes, and they fail in ways that are expensive and slow to show.

Several of the Penticton hillside developments are bare land stratas, so if you are looking up the benches this is worth understanding properly before you write.

What the survey does

In a conventional strata, your lot boundary is a building surface. The Strata Property Act defines where your unit stops and common property starts, and it is generally the midpoint of a wall, floor or ceiling.

In a bare land strata, there is no building in that definition. The lots are defined by survey markers set by a BC land surveyor, and the strata plan shows dimensions and bearings the way a subdivision plan would. The governing rules are the Bare Land Strata Regulations, B.C. Reg. 75/78, sitting under the Strata Property Act.

What that leaves as common property is everything outside those surveyed lines: the roads, the in-ground services, the open space.

The regulations use the term access routes for the portions of common property providing vehicular access to the lots. When a bare land strata is created, an approving officer has to be satisfied those routes give practical and reasonable access and meet accepted engineering standards.

What you actually own

The land inside your survey markers, and everything you build on it. Your house, your roof, your windows, your driveway within the lot, your landscaping.

Not the road. Not the water main. Not the sewer line, even the length of it running under your lawn.

That last point is the one that surprises people, and the regulations deal with it explicitly. There must be easements registered so the strata corporation can enter a strata lot to install, repair, maintain or replace common property pipes or lines laid on or under that lot.

In practice that is a good arrangement for an owner. A broken water main under your yard is the strata’s problem to fix, not yours. But it also means the strata has a standing right of access to part of your property, and you cannot build over a service line as though the ground were unconditionally yours.

Insurance, which is the big practical difference

A strata corporation must insure the common property and the buildings shown on the strata plan.

In a bare land strata there usually are no buildings shown on the strata plan. Only surveyed lots. So the house is generally yours to insure, on an ordinary homeowner policy, exactly as if it were a freehold house on a city street.

This is the opposite of a condominium, where the corporation carries the building insurance and you carry a much narrower policy for your unit’s interior, betterments and your deductible exposure.

Neither arrangement is better. But arriving at completion with condominium-style insurance on a bare land strata lot is a genuine problem, and it is the kind of thing that gets discovered late.

Arrangements do vary between developments. Confirm it against the strata’s own insurance summary rather than against a general description, including this one, and give your insurance broker the strata documents rather than a verbal summary.

What the fees are buying

Typically:

The private roads and their drainage
In-ground water and sewer infrastructure
Street lighting, common landscaping, snow clearing
The strata’s insurance on common property, and administration

Not your roof, siding, windows, furnace or hot water tank. Those are yours directly.

So bare land strata fees are often lower than condominium fees in the same price range, and that comparison misleads people. You are not paying less to own a home. You are paying for your own envelope directly instead of through a monthly fee, which means the discipline of setting money aside for a roof is yours rather than the corporation’s.

For a downsizer moving out of a house, this is worth thinking about honestly. If part of the appeal of strata living was that somebody else worries about the exterior, a bare land strata does not give you that.

The road is the number to look at

This is where I would spend the most attention.

A private road is a large asset with a finite life, and there is no municipality standing behind it. When it needs resurfacing or rebuilding, the owners pay, through the contingency reserve fund or a special levy.

On a hillside development that road comes with grades, culverts, catch basins, ditching and sometimes retaining structures. Those are civil works. They are expensive to replace, and the failure mode is usually drainage doing damage slowly for years before anything visible happens.

So when I read the depreciation report on a bare land strata, the questions are:

What condition is the road surface in, and when does the report say it needs work?
What is the drainage doing? Culverts and catch basins are cheap to maintain and expensive to replace after a washout.
Are there retaining structures, and has anyone had an engineer look at them?
Where are the water and sewer lines in their life cycle?

Then set that against the contingency reserve fund balance on the Form B. The gap is what gets asked of the owners, and after you complete that includes you. How to read strata documents before you buy covers where each of those numbers lives.

A bare land strata still needs a depreciation report on exactly the same schedule as any other strata: five or more lots means a report every five years with no vote to defer. What changed in 2024, and the Penticton deadline sets out the dates.

The bylaws are usually stricter, not looser

The common assumption is that owning your own lot means more freedom. Often it is the reverse.

Bare land strata bylaws frequently govern building design, materials, colours, roof pitch, fencing, landscaping standards, RV and boat parking, and how long a lot may sit undeveloped. Some carry a build-out deadline requiring construction to start or finish within a set period of purchase.

If you are buying a vacant lot to build on, those bylaws are not background reading. They constrain what you can build, sometimes more tightly than the zoning does, and a design you have already paid for is an expensive place to discover that.

How this sits against the alternatives

Against a freehold house: you gain shared infrastructure, maintained roads and a set of rules that protect the look of the development. You give up unilateral control and take on fees and a council.

Against a conventional condominium: you gain a detached home, your own land and usually lower fees. You give up having the building envelope handled for you, and you take the insurance on your own house.

Against leasehold, which also turns up in this market, the difference is more fundamental, because there you do not own the land at all. Buying on leased land in Penticton covers that separately.

What I would do before writing

Confirm it is actually a bare land strata. The strata plan tells you. Listings are not always precise about it.
Get the insurance position in writing and give the documents to your broker before subject removal.
Read the depreciation report for the road, the drainage and the buried services, not just the total.
Read the bylaws for design and landscaping control, especially on a vacant lot.
Ask where the service lines run across your lot, because it affects what you can build and plant.

The full strata checklist sits here: what to check before you buy into a BC strata.

Rules described above come from the Bare Land Strata Regulations and the Strata Property Act and are current as of September 2026. Legislation changes. Confirm anything you plan to rely on.

If you are looking at a hillside bare land strata and want someone to read the documents with you, email me at dano007@shaw.ca or call 250.488.0226.