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Our AGM should be held sometime soon, and I can see how we can accomplish this by email. All owners are on the committee so we can nominate them all in advance and choose a maximum number for the committee to include everyone. The problem arises when considering the strata committee meeting which is usually held immediately following the AGM. How is it possible to elect office bearers if the opportunity must be provided for a nomination (in writing) to be handed up at the meeting?
Email voting has an added appeal at the moment as awkward meeting dynamics caused by a difficult owner who is usually poorly handled by the strata manager, together with the resultant upset and confusion, would be avoided.
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The NSW government has just passed legislation that allows the regulations on AGMs and paper and/or electronic voting to be allowed and AGMs to be delayed. The new regs have not been announced (that I can find) but they should be soon. Your strata manager/committee shouldn’t be in any rush to hold the AGM until then.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
We have the same issue here, ‘and then some’.
Our Sydney building’s AGM is ‘due’ and is next week; scheduled and notified after COVID-19 disruption was well known. It has been announced it’s going to be a ‘Zoom meeting’. We can vote on issues with a voting form or assign proxies. But there is a cabal of owners (the Strata Committee) with unpopular agenda items.
Just one is, they want to replace 150 windows in all units. They want to raise a Special Levy which will cost owners an extra eight thousand dollars a year or two grand a quarter. From now; with the full financial effects of COVID-19 not known. It seems ridiculous. I think they are deliberately trying to sneak stuff through.
Bearing in mind what Jimmy says, in this stream should this meeting be postponed? By a motion or something on the night? Or by lobbying the Strata Committee to vote to postpone?
We are all in uncharted territory here and you may even find greater engagement from other owners than you would normally get at an AGM. All you can do is make sure as many people as possible tune in on Zoom and and least listen to the counter arguments.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
Here’s a bit from the NSW Office of Fair Trading’s web site page headed Strata and community schemes under COVID-19. It sends shivers down my spine.
“If all reasonable efforts have been made to hold a general meeting under the above guidelines and the meeting is unable to achieve a quorum, the Chair can use the no quorum procedure to hold a valid meeting and pass the resolution.”
I reckon we won’t have a quorum and our inept Strata Committee and tricky Strata Manager will do their worst. Which means, in these COVID times, we’ll be getting an $8,000 per lot per annum Special Levy to cover 150 new windows with almost no information supplied and only the one quote for owners’ consideration (which has why this project hasn’t got up over the last four years, when it’s been sorely needed).
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