For strata councils
Strata management software your council can actually use
Most strata management software is priced for the management company, not the council. BuildingHQ is the council's operational home: a shared memory the strata owns, that survives a change of management firm, and that any incoming council member can pick up in an afternoon.
What a self-managed strata actually needs
The council's real work isn't AGM prep; it's the six weeks leading up to the AGM. It's the leak in unit 302 that turned into a common-property claim. It's the boiler that no council member remembers when it was last serviced. It's the vendor who ghosted. BuildingHQ has a surface for each:
The building log
Every observation, decision, and document lands as a searchable entry attached to the right equipment, vendor, area, or unit. The spine of the whole system.
Equipment + service history
Boiler, HRV, elevators, sprinkler risers, backflow, fire panel — one page per piece with model, serial, install date, service log, attached manuals, vendor contacts.
Vendor rolodex
Contractors with their contact info, after-hours numbers, past invoices, and running notes. A new council member takes it and dials.
Procedures + SOPs
Burst-pipe playbook. Fire panel silence. AGM prep. Compliance calendar. One page each, findable in three taps.
Reminders + checklists
Annual backflow. Quarterly fire panel. Monthly BBQ inspection. Compliance obligations that don't get missed.
Visitor parking
Owners register plates from the portal. Patrol walks the lot. Council reviews unmatched plates in bulk, not in real time.
Announcements + status page
Owners see notices and current outages on a persistent page they can bookmark. No mass email storm.
Manuals library
Bylaws, rules, warranty manuals, MSDS, engineer reports, Depreciation Report — searchable, deep-linkable, versioned.
Lobby TV displays
Rotating dashboard for the elevator lobby — weather, current outages, garage strip schedule, welcome message.
Memory that outlasts a council turnover
The single most damaging pattern in self-managed stratas is information loss at council transitions. An outgoing treasurer leaves; three years of context leaves with them. A new president spends six months relearning what the previous president knew.
BuildingHQ is designed so that the strata's operational memory lives in the strata, not in a specific person's head or inbox. Every entry, equipment record, vendor note, and procedure survives council turnover — a new member reads the log for an afternoon and knows what's going on.
More on the annual reset problem →
For owners and tenants
Residents log in with a unit code from a printed card. From the portal they:
- See building announcements and current outages.
- File a report (leak, hallway light, appliance).
- Register a visitor parking pass with a plate number.
- Look up bylaws, rules, parking policy, recycling schedule.
No email account or app install required. Everything runs in a browser on any device. Owners who want email notifications add an email; owners who don't can still use the portal fully.
Visitor parking, without the fights
Visitor parking is the single most contentious operational issue in strata buildings. BuildingHQ's visitor parking system is designed around three separations:
- Registration is a resident action, not council action. The council isn't in the loop for routine passes.
- Enforcement is a lookup, not a debate. Patrol opens a shift, scans plates, sees a clear yes/no.
- Pass types are configurable. Visitor, overnight, monthly guest, contractor, special event — each with its own quota, duration, approval requirement.
Read the visitor parking page →
Pricing that fits how stratas fund things
Basic — free forever for internal council and staff use. The full log, equipment, vendors, manuals, procedures, issues, reminders, checklists. No credit card.
Standard — $39/month + $0.50 per resident account/month — adds owner and tenant accounts, announcements, a public status page, visitor parking, and lobby TV displays. Free for 30 days.
Pro — $99/month + $0.60 per resident account/month — same feature set as Standard with higher limits for bigger strata plans.
Frequently asked questions
Is BuildingHQ strata management software?
BuildingHQ is operations software for strata corporations, not accounting or fee-collection software. It handles the operational side of running a strata: council business, equipment history, vendor management, resident portal, announcements, visitor parking, and lobby displays. Strata fees, budgets, and reserve funds stay in your accounting tool.
Does it fit a self-managed strata?
That's specifically what it's designed for. Small to mid-size strata corporations (5 to 500 units) that manage themselves or want to. The internal-use tier is free forever, so a self-managed council can adopt it without a budget conversation.
We already have a strata management company. Does BuildingHQ still make sense?
Often, yes. A management company handles a lot but doesn't give the council its own operational memory. The BuildingHQ log survives a change of management firm — so the day you switch managers, the boiler service history, the vendor rolodex, and the past three years of decisions don't leave with them. See our post on what your manager knows for more.
How much does it cost per unit?
Internal council use is free forever. Resident-facing features (portal, parking, announcements, lobby displays) are $39/month base plus $0.50 per resident account. A 60-unit strata with all residents on the portal is about $69/month.
Does it work for BC stratas specifically?
Yes. The vocabulary (strata council, strata plan, strata lot, strata fee, bylaw) is available in the strata language pack. The visitor parking system respects the way BC strata visitor passes typically work — quota per lot, time-boxed passes, patrol-and-review enforcement.
Is data hosted in Canada?
BuildingHQ can be self-hosted for data-sovereignty requirements, and our hosted region for Canadian strata deployments is Canada-based. See /privacy and /subprocessors for the specifics.
Can we import our current spreadsheets?
Yes. The smart importer accepts CSV or Excel — strata plans, equipment lists, vendor rolodexes, parking allocations. It figures out which columns map to which BuildingHQ fields; you don't need to reshape into a template. See the smart import guide.
Further reading
- What actually lives on the property manager's side of the wall
- The $40K boiler — why equipment history is your most fragile asset
- Turning AGM prep from a scramble into a routine
- Procedures for the next council
Free for internal council use forever. Start the resident features on a 30-day trial. No credit card.
Start free