What a special levy actually costs per door

Across 2,000+ samples drawn from our pool of BC strata reviews, the typical approved levy works out to about $1,000 per unit. The purpose of the levy moves that number by a factor of ten, and one vote in four never passes at all.

Nobody budgets for a special levy, which is more or less the point of them. When the contingency reserve fund cannot cover a roof, a repipe or a lawyer, the strata votes on a one-time charge and splits it by unit entitlement. We pulled every levy vote recorded in the council and general-meeting minutes we have processed, 2,000+ votes across 2,000+ samples drawn from our pool of BC strata reviews, most of them from 2023 onward, and asked the question buyers actually have: what does this cost per door?

Roofs and pipes cost the most per door

Roof and piping levies lead at a median of roughly $2,900 and $2,600 per unit, and the middle half of buildings paid anywhere from about $600 to $8,000 a door. Building-envelope work, the classic Lower Mainland levy, sits at about $2,100 per unit but is the most common purpose by count: nearly one approved levy in five is for the envelope. Elevators come in around $1,700. At the other end, security upgrades (cameras, fobs, lighting) have a median of about $200 per unit, and the "general" levies, the ones whose stated purpose is essentially we ran short this year, land near $500.

The band is wide for a reason that has nothing to do with contractors. Per-door cost is the whole-building cost divided by the number of doors. A $250,000 roof spread across 150 units is about $1,700 each; the same roof over 30 townhouses is $8,300 each. So a per-unit figure only means something next to the building's size, which is why our reports show both the levy and the unit count.

For scale, the whole-building medians: an approved roof levy is about $250,000, a repipe about $250,000, envelope work about $145,000, an elevator project about $130,000, and a straight top-up of the contingency fund about $64,000.

One vote in four fails, and the big asks fail more

A special levy needs a three-quarter vote of owners when it is apportioned the same way as strata fees, which is almost always the case. [1] Of the levy votes recorded in our sample from 2023 to 2026, about 25% were defeated. The rate has been steady: 27% in 2023, 25% in 2024, 23% in 2025 and about 30% so far in 2026.

The defeated levies are, on the whole, larger. Envelope levies that failed had a median ask of about $320,000 against $145,000 for the ones that passed. Window projects that failed asked for about $410,000; the ones that passed, about $100,000. Electrical work shows the same shape. Roofs are the exception: defeated roof levies were smaller than approved ones, about $180,000 against $250,000. Our reading is that when water is coming through the ceiling, owners pay, and the roof levies that fail tend to be the pre-emptive ones.

When the roof is already leaking, owners pay. The levies that fail are the ones for work nobody can see yet.

A defeat is rarely the end of the story. Where the work is needed for safety or to prevent significant loss and the resolution got a majority but not three-quarters, the strata can apply to the BC Supreme Court to have the levy approved anyway. [1] [2] That is expensive and slow, and in the minutes we read it is uncommon. What we see far more often is the same project back on the agenda a few months later, smaller, phased or re-explained. We will write about that pattern on its own.

Amounts are drifting up

The median approved levy was about $60,000 in 2023 and 2024, $73,000 in 2025, and about $100,000 for the first part of 2026. The 2026 figure covers part of a year and includes some large envelope projects, so treat it as a direction rather than a number. It does line up with what engineers have been putting in depreciation reports about construction-cost inflation.

What to do with this

• If you are buying: the Form B lists levies already approved; the minutes show the ones being argued about. Divide any figure you see by the building's unit count and put it next to the table above.

• If you are on council: this is the base rate. A roof or repipe levy in the low thousands per door is ordinary, and a resolution over about $300,000 has historically had a harder time reaching three-quarters.

• If you want your neighbourhood: levy frequency and per-unit amounts by area are on StrataStats.

See it for one building. A StrataReports building report shows every levy vote in the minutes, with the amount, the purpose and how the building compares to similar ones nearby. Look at a sample report.

How we counted. Based on 2,000+ samples drawn from our pool of BC strata reviews. Figures come from the council and general-meeting minutes in those samples, mostly 2023 to 2026. Only resolutions the minutes record as approved or defeated are counted. Per-unit values divide the levy by the corporation's total unit count. Figures are medians and the middle half (p25–p75), rounded to two significant figures; purposes with too few levies to summarise are not shown. No building is identified. Neighbourhood-level figures live on StrataStats and follow the same minimum-sample rules. If you use these figures, a link back to this post is appreciated.

Further reading

1. Special levies in stratas, Province of British Columbia

2. What can stratas do if a resolution for urgent repairs is defeated?, Lawson Lundell