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Topic
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We recently held a General Meeting.
On opening the meeting an owner came in and signed the register as being present. She asked if she could speak at the meeting and was informed that no this was a special meeting to approve a by law only. She then left the meeting without withdrawing her name from the register.
A quorum was not present at the advertised time so the Chairperson advised those present that the meeting would be adjourned for 30 mins.
The meeting was reopened and a quorum was declared using the persons name on the register that had physically left and had not returned for the adjourned meeting.
When I queried this with our Strata Manager her answer was…”I think and I think everyone present accepted her as being present to reach a quorum and the Chairperson accepted her vote”!!!!!!! (even though she was not there)
My query is – When the meeting was re-opened should they have had a new register of those present and eligible to vote.
Also because there was not a quorum and yet the meeting went ahead and approved the by law where do we stand??
Thank you for any help in this matter.
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I’m not sure why the owner was told that she couldn’t speak at the meeting, if she is an owner then she is entitled to speak at any general meeting.
The details you set out are a bit confusing, if there was no quorum at the advertised time, then after the meeting was adjourned and re-opened how could there have been a quorum, unless someone else had turned up in the interim?
Anyway – the way it works now is that if you adjourn a meeting and then re-open it and there is still no quorum, the Chair can either adjourn the meeting for at least 7 days, or declare that those present either in person or by proxy who are entitled to vote constitute a quorum for that meeting.
So that is what the Chair should have done. You are right, the person who left the meeting was not present (or did she leave a proxy?), but the Chair could have just said we have a quorum and the result would be no different.
They should change the minutes of the meeting though.
That sounds like the procedure known as a ‘reduced quorum’ meeting in the ACT. I guess the key thing is ‘Did any decision of the meeting depend on just one vote?’ If the outcome would have been the same, then correcting the attendance record when minutes are accepted at the next meeting is really all that is needed. If there was a very close vote then perhaps it is worth making a fuss about.
If that person who came and went left instructions with the chair that could be construed as a proxy vote then perhaps she was ‘present’ in that sense. Not perfect but perhaps not all that dodgy.
If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the meeting, perhaps NSW has provisions like the ACT for reduced quorum meetings? Here, a decision does not take effect for 28 days. Minutes must be distributed with a reduced quorum notice within 7 days. A reduced quorum decision can be overturned within the 28 days by a petition of a majority of owners who would have been entitled to vote at the time of the meeting. Any subsequent general meeting can resolve to revoke the decision.
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