Council Handover & Institutional Continuity

The Council Handover & Institutional Continuity engine safeguards strata corporations against institutional memory loss during volunteer turnover. When council members step down at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), vital building information—including online bank credentials, mechanical shutoff valves, service warranties, and vendor cancellation deadlines—is frequently lost or misplaced.

[!NOTE] Outside British Columbia: the statute sections this guide cites are BC law, and Pastrata shows them only to buildings in BC. A building in another jurisdiction sees the same screens with neutral wording, and should check its own bylaws and statute for the rules that apply.

Pastrata’s "Handover in a Box" records the handover from one council to the next. No statute prescribes a council-to-council custody transfer: the Transfer of Custody certificate is the council's own record of what passed between the outgoing and incoming officers. It unites a post-AGM role transition wizard, an interactive 5-domain orientation walkthrough for newly elected council members, a permanent machinery and vendor contract vault, and 1-click offline emergency packages.

Required Roles & Capabilities

Access to council handover and continuity workflows is governed by assigned building capabilities:

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Step 1: Execute Post-AGM Council Handover Wizard

Following the election of council members at an AGM or Special General Meeting (SGM), the transition lead or licensed property manager initiates the 4-step handover wizard:

1. Navigate to Management in the primary navigation and select Council Continuity (or open /[building]/management/council/handover).
2. Click Launch Handover Wizard (COUNCIL_TRANSITION_MANAGE).
3. Step 1 — Election Outcome Review:
   • Confirm the new council term year (for example, 2026-2027) and effective start date.
   • If linked to an adjourned AGM in Pastrata, verified election counts are imported automatically.
   • Review outgoing council members stepping down from the executive board.
4. Step 2 — Officer Title Designation:
   • Add elected council members and assign executive officer titles:
     • President: Chief executive officer presiding over council and general meetings.
     • Vice President: Acts as president in their absence or refusal to act.
     • Treasurer: Supervises financial accounts, reserve funds, fee collection, and budgets.
     • Secretary: Maintains official strata correspondence, notices, minutes, and records.
     • Member at Large: Voting council executive contributing to operational decisions.
5. Step 3 — Permissions & Access Preview:
   • Inspect live permission recomputation.
   • Incoming council members gain manager privileges and routing channels automatically.
   • Outgoing members not re-elected are gracefully stepped down, and active sessions are refreshed to safeguard sensitive building records.
6. Step 4 — Transfer of Custody & Dual E-Signature:
   • Review and affirm the 5 mandatory custody transfer declarations:
     • Bank Signing Authority: Transfer of financial institutions, signing cards, and online banking profiles.
     • Building Keys & Security Fobs: Custody of master keys, electrical and boiler room fobs, and fire department lockbox keys.
     • Vendor Contracts & Warranties: Custody of ongoing maintenance contracts and builder warranty documents.
     • Digital Administration: Primary administration transfer of building workspaces, records vault, and user routing.
     • Corporate Records: Transfer of minute books, registered bylaws, architectural plans, and financial ledgers.
   • Click Execute Post-AGM Handover. The system generates a formal Transfer of Custody Certificate PDF and dispatches dual e-signatures (Outgoing President/Treasurer + Incoming President/Treasurer) via electronic signature delivery.

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Step 2: Complete the 5-Domain Interactive Council Orientation

Newly elected strata council members often struggle to understand their building’s operational, physical, and financial standing. When an unoriented council member logs in, Pastrata automatically prompts them with the interactive Council Orientation Walkthrough:

1. Click Orientation Walkthrough on your management dashboard or continuity center (COUNCIL_ORIENTATION_VIEW).
2. Step through the 5 foundational operational domains:
   • Domain 1 — Building Profile & Vitals: Review strata plan number, construction year, unit count breakdown (residential vs. commercial), storage lockers, parking stalls, and primary emergency utility shutoffs (main water valve, gas meter, and electrical disconnect).
   • Domain 2 — Financial Posture: Inspect current Operating Fund balance, Contingency Reserve Fund (CRF) balance, 30-day fee collection rate, total owner arrears, and statutory 10% CRF contribution compliance under BC Strata Property Regulation 6.1.
   • Domain 3 — Active Maintenance & Projects: Review open work orders prioritized by urgency (URGENT, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW), pending contractor quote requests, and active capital projects.
   • Domain 4 — Key Contacts & Emergency Trades: Master strata insurance binder details (insurer, policy number, expiration date, water and earthquake deductibles) and verified 24/7 emergency trade providers (elevator service, plumber, electrician, fire safety).
   • Domain 5 — Upcoming 90-Day Compliance Runway: Highlights deadlines on your Compliance Calendar approaching within 90 days, including:
     • Filing each approved bylaw amendment in the land title office as an Amendment to Bylaws (Form I, BC SPA s. 128(2)); the amendment has no effect until filed.
     • Annual fire safety and backflow preventer inspection.
     • Master strata insurance policy renewal.
3. On the final step, click Mark Orientation Complete to certify completion. The building audit log records an immutable COUNCIL_ORIENTATION_COMPLETED record.
4. Experienced council members re-elected to successive terms can select Dismiss to bypass the onboarding walkthrough.

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Step 3: Council Records

Located at /[building]/management/council/continuity, the Council Records page acts as the single source of truth across council terms:

Council Roster & Term History

• Inspect the active council term year, effective dates, and officer badges. Before council has recorded a term, the tab says so and points those who can run the handover to the wizard.
• Review historical council rosters from previous years to understand who made past board decisions.
• Download the cryptographically sealed Transfer of Custody Certificate PDF documenting past election handovers.

Critical Equipment & Emergency Shutdown Procedures

• Searchable registry of all building physical machinery: boilers, booster pumps, fire panels, sump pumps, and elevator motor rooms.
• Equipment criticality ratings: CRITICAL, MAJOR, STANDARD, and LOW.
• Click View Emergency Shutdown Procedure on any mechanical asset to display concise, step-by-step shutoff protocols and exact valve tags (for example: "Boiler Room B-02: Turn yellow valve clockwise 90 degrees to isolate gas supply; breaker switch #14 on Panel C").

Vendor Contracts Vault & Auto-Renewal Trap Radar (BC SPA s. 35(2)(g))

• Digital repository for building maintenance contracts (elevator maintenance, landscaping, waste management, janitorial, HVAC). In BC a written contract must be kept for at least 6 years after it ends (Strata Property Regulation s. 4.1(4)).
• The Evergreen Auto-Renewal Trap: Many multi-year commercial service contracts contain automatic renewal clauses requiring 60 to 90 days advance written notice to terminate. If volunteer councils miss this window, the building is locked into another multi-year term at escalated rates.
• Cancellation Notice Radar: Pastrata automatically computes cancellationNoticeDate = endDate - renewalNoticeDays.
  • Overdue / Locked: Contract passed its cancellation notice date.
  • Urgent Trap Warning (Amber/Red Badge): Notice deadline is within 30 days. Prompts council to review vendor performance and issue cancellation notice if re-tendering.
• Click Add Vendor Contract (VENDOR_CONTRACT_MANAGE) to register new service agreements with renewal notice periods and emergency dispatch phone numbers.

Emergency Handover Toolkit (1-Click Offline Exports)

To ensure council members have complete operational access during power failures, network outages, or on-site emergency dispatches:

1. Strata Council Binder in a Box (PDF):
   • Paginated, indexed offline handbook including Table of Contents, Council Roster, Financial Balance Sheet, Equipment Inventory, Vendor Directory, and 90-Day Compliance Calendar. Statute references in the binder come from your building's jurisdiction, and the binder names the jurisdiction Pastrata has on record for the building.
2. Printable Emergency Trade Card (PDF):
   • High-contrast, 1-page printable summary formatted for laminating and mounting in physical boiler rooms, electrical rooms, and council member emergency kits.
   • Lists 24/7 emergency dispatch numbers (elevator entrapment, flood remediation, fire alarm monitoring, master locksmith), insurance policy numbers, and primary utility shutoffs.
3. Smartphone Contacts (vCard / .vcf):
   • Standard .vcf file containing verified trade contacts, allowing council members to import building emergency numbers into their mobile address books with one click.

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Step 4: Home Warranty Milestone Tracking

The orientation walkthrough and the council binder show the warranty milestones recorded for your building, whatever its jurisdiction.

Where none are recorded, a British Columbia building with a known construction year also sees estimated new-home warranty dates. The Homeowner Protection Act Regulation sets the minimum coverage for a strata's common property:

• 15 months: defects in materials and labour.
• 2 years: defects in the electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, the exterior cladding, caulking, windows and doors, and defects that make the building unfit to live in.
• 5 years: the building envelope.
• 10 years: structural defects.

Coverage runs from when the first home in the building was occupied or its title transferred, which Pastrata doesn't record, so these dates are estimated from the construction year. Record the warranty's actual dates for exact expiries. Buildings outside British Columbia see only the milestones they record, under a neutral "Home warranty" heading.

Pastrata scans these warranty milestone dates (recorded ones everywhere, and the estimates in British Columbia) and alerts council at 90, 60, and 30 days before each warranty period ends, so council can commission an independent warranty review before then.

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Best Practices for Outgoing & Incoming Councils

[!TIP] Expedite Bank Signing Resolution: Financial institutions frequently require weeks to process signing officer updates. Generate and sign the Custody Certificate immediately following the AGM so the incoming Treasurer and President can present official meeting minutes and certificate documentation to the bank without delay.

[!IMPORTANT] Post Physical Emergency Cards On-Site: In addition to digital access, print and laminate the 1-page Building Emergency Card and mount it inside the primary electrical room and boiler room so emergency responders and on-call trades can access shutoff procedures instantly during an incident.