Justice Reform Initiatives ~ Early Solutions, Faster Justice

Civil Justice Reform Projects

Notice to Mediate (Residential Construction) Regulation

The notice to mediate process enables any party to an action in the Supreme Court to compel all other parties to attend a mediation session. It was first introduced in 1998 for motor vehicle personal injury cases.

The Barrett Commission report, The Commission of Inquiry into the Quality of Condominium Construction in British Columbia: The Renewal of Trust in Residential Construction (1998) reported that the traditional adversarial process has not worked well in complex residential construction disputes:

The litigation system does not serve the homeowner well…The delays and expense are detrimental to defendants as well as plaintiffs.

Every [court] case the commission was told about had taken much longer than the parties wanted - and was still unresolved. Legal expenses were another serious problem for strata councils and condo owners. In many cases the legal bills appeared to be as onerous as the estimated cost of repairs.

The commission recommended that the proposed Homeowner Protection Act provide an alternative dispute resolution option for disputes arising from the problems surrounding residential construction. After the Homeowner Protection Act was passed, the Dispute Resolution Office of the Ministry of Attorney General consulted with representatives of homeowner associations, the construction industry, the insurance industry, the bar and the mediation community and there was wide consensus that the notice to mediate process should be adapted to accommodate the residential construction context.

The Notice to Mediate (Residential Construction) Regulation [PDF] came into force in May 1999.

For more information, see the Notice to Mediate (Residential Construction) Regulation bulletin on the Dispute Resolution Office website.