Inflatable hot tub can stay on Vancouver condo balcony, judge rules

An inflatable hot tub is seen in a Shutterstock image.

Two Vancouver condo owners will be able to keep an inflatable hot tub on their balcony after a judge found that the item constituted patio furniture and was allowed under the strata's bylaws.

Justice Michael Tammen ruled on the case in B.C. Supreme Court last month after the strata filed for a review of an earlier decision by the province's Civil Resolution Tribunal.

According to the decision, the owners live on the 26th floor of a tower in downtown Vancouver and set up the inflatable hot tub in September of 2021 after the strata rejected their request to do so.

"After the strata council learned of the placement of the hot tub on the patio, it initiated bylaw enforcement processes pursuant to its bylaws and the Strata Property Act," Tammen wrote in his ruling.

John Emmerton and Van Ortega took the dispute to the tribunal in December of that year and a decision was handed down in August of 2022.

"I have found the applicants’ inflatable hot tub is patio furniture, I find the bylaws expressly permit the applicants to have the hot tub on the patio. In the absence of a bylaw contravention, I find the strata has no authority to require the applicants to remove the hot tub from the patio," Tribunal Member Kristin Gardner wrote in that decision.

Key to the determination that the inflatable hot tub was patio furniture was the fact that it was easily movable and could be quickly and easily drained and deflated.

The strata asked for that decision to be reviewed by a judge, arguing that it was "patently unreasonable" and should be reversed, the court decision says.

The strata said that the tribunal had made a mistake when interpreting the by-law allowing patio furniture also allowed the hot tub, saying that interpretation was inconsistent with "the plain and ordinary meaning of the term" and also that it was not explicitly mentioned on a list of permissible items alongside barbecues and flower pots.

The new evidence the strata sought to introduce in support of its case and its claim that the hot tub was not patio furniture was rejected by the court as inadmissible, "wholly irrelevant" and "of extremely marginal relevance." Even if it had been admitted, Tammen said it would not have changed the original decision, which he upheld.

"I cannot say that the central reasoning and analysis, nor the ultimate conclusion, is patently unreasonable. The tribunal member’s conclusion certainly does not border on the absurd," he wrote.