Metro Vancouver residents claim $225,000 in possessions taken from stratas

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – From a late father’s art, to fine Italian furniture, to cremated remains, three people say more than $225,000 in personal possessions have been wrongfully taken from Metro Vancouver strata complexes in three separate incidents.

And the three properties share at least one thing in common: they are managed by AWM Alliance Real Estate Group.

In a lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court in August, 2018, Langley resident Diana Stroie claimed someone took $190,000-worth of her late mother’s property.

The lawsuit names AWM, six Delta strata corporations and Mathew Lesniak, an AWM employee who managed the strata clubhouse where Stroie’s mom lived, according to the lawsuit.

Jewelry, furniture, remains allegedly taken

An estimated $75,000 in jewelry, $60,000 in houseware and furniture, $30,000 in tools, $25,000 in crystal and china, and land title documents for a property in Europe were taken, as well as sentimental photos, heirlooms and the ashes of dead loved ones, according to Stroie.

In the same lawsuit Stroie claims Lesniak owes her $8,000 she lent him “so that he could purchase a BMW automobile and insurance.”

NEWS 1130 contacted Lesniak, AWM’s vice-president of residential services, its CEO and its lawyer, none of whom responded to a request for comment.

Stroie declined to comment for this story.

In the court filing, Storie said she gave post-dated checks to AWM in September 2016 for the rental of a manager’s suite in the clubhouse of the Delta strata complex that covered the rental through September 2017. Stroie’s mother lived in the suite and managed the property until her death in October 2016. The cheques were cashed in November and December, according to Stroie.

Stroie says she visited the suite about five weeks after her mother’s passing to take stock of its contents and arrange for a moving company to empty it.

But just three days later, “AWM personnel or an agent thereof, acting at the direction of Lesniak, or acting of their own accord, entered the manager’s suite, changed the locks, and removed the contents,” the lawsuit claims. “At no time did Stroie consent to Lesniak, AWM personnel, or any other person entering the manager’s suite or removing the contents.”

Stroie said “personnel” from Strata 911, the clubhouse’s cleaning company, told her the items had either been destroyed or given to charity. But soon after that she saw some of the items for sale online.

Missing items seen on Craigslist: lawsuit

“Pictures of some of the contents on Craigslist showed that they were being stored in two separate locations, including the personal residence of Strata 911 personnel, and clearly depict the contents were in use,” she alleges.

An individual who answered the phone at a number listed for Strata 911 said the company was defunct and he couldn’t provide contact information for anyone associated with it.

Stroie was “severely emotionally distressed” by the incident and she “suffered from extreme headaches, difficulty sleeping, and her body became covered in hives,” according to the lawsuit, which also claims the symptoms “persisted for a prolonged period of time, negatively impacting Stroie’s quality of life by causing pain and suffering.”

She is suing for the $8,000 she says Lesniak owes her, plus damages for the items, her mental suffering and her court costs.

In a response filed in September 2018, the defendants deny the bulk of Stroie’s claims.

Management company denies all claims 

The defendants deny the incident Stroie describes ever happened.

But if her version of events did occur “as alleged or at all,” they offer a series of independent claims about what happened:

• They told Stroie the tenancy had been terminated
• They gave her adequate notice of their plans to enter the suite and change the locks
• They stored the suite’s contents “in a safe place and manner for not less than 60 days following the date of removal”
• Stroie didn’t suffer any of the injury, damages or expenses she claims
• If she did suffer those losses, it wasn’t their fault

If the incident did occur as Stroie alleges and if she did suffer the losses she claims, it was at least partly her fault or someone else’s, the defendants claim.

None of the allegations have been proven in court and the case is scheduled to be heard in September 2021.

North Van couple distraught over emptied locker

In August of this year, a North Vancouver couple returned from abroad to find a storage locker in their condo building – the West Quay development, which is also managed by AWM – had been emptied out.

Albert Bragagnini told NEWS 1130 he estimated it had contained $25,000 worth of his family’s possessions, including sculptures, Italian furniture, his late father’s artwork and more.

“We are distraught by this careless action and by the consequences of irreparable loss of our valuables, material and sentimental contents,” Bragagnini told NEWS 1130 on Sept. 3.

Related article: North Vancouver couple ‘distraught’ after $25,000 in possessions tossed out

According to Bragagnini, AWM told him it had posted a notice in the building and sent it to residents via email, asking the owner of the items to remove them from the storage locker because it belonged to another resident.

The retiree said he was in Panama at the time and never got the message.

Bragagagnini said he believed AWM had made an honest mistake but he had not been given an adequate explanation or apology as of Sept. 3.

AWM did not respond to a request for comment for this story or when NEWS 1130 reached out in early September.

Belongings taken from downtown condo locker

A Civil Resolution Tribunal decision from 2018 tells a similar story about an incident at a property managed by AWM, although it names only the strata and does not name or assign any blame to the property management company.

The tribunal’s vice chair, J. Garth Cambrey, ordered the strata of the Residences on Georgia, a two-tower condo development in downtown Vancouver’s Coal Harbour neighbourhood, to pay condo-owner Chi Wai Lo more than $11,000 for items that were taken from her basement storage locker.

According to Cambrey, the storage locker was assigned to two different condos but the strata mistakenly thought it belonged exclusively to someone other than Chi Wai Lo.

He said the strata posted a notice “at unknown locations” in the condo building, informing residents the storage locker was “not being used by its rightful owner,” asked the owner of its contents to remove them and warning it would be emptied if they did not comply.

Less than a week later, “the strata arranged for removal and disposal of the items,” according to Cambrey.

A month after the items were cleared out, Chi Wai Lo’s father, who lived in the condo, got a letter informing him it had been “cleaned out,” Cambrey wrote.

The tribunal member rejected the owner’s argument that the strata had acted in bad faith.

“However,” he wrote, “I find the care, diligence and skill used by the strata council to be troubling.”

He ordered the strata to pay Chi Wai Lo $12,492 plus interest for the value of her items and her legal and tribunal fees.

The property and site managers of the Georgia complex did not respond to requests for comment.

*Editor’s note: A previous version of this story identified Stroie as an employee of AWM. In fact, she is an employee of a strata corporation managed and paid by AWM.