High cost of a failed by-law

Was this ‘by the book’? if only there was a book to go by.  First of all, it’s not unusual from someone who wants a special resolution by-law like this to pay for both the by-law and the meeting.  You are, after all, the only person benefitiing from this process.

Secondly, you have tripped over one of the great truisms of politics – never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.

It’s a shame you hadn’t come on to this forum before you launched this effort as I’m sure the one resounding message all of our regulars would have given you was “make sure you have the numbers”.

There are two things you can do before you go round again with this (as you should). Make direct contact with as many other owners as you can and ask them to support your application.  Now that you know there is one person against this, you know you need three other votes to get past the 75 percent vote (assuming the one ‘no’ vote is the only one).

Many people won’t vote in favour of something even if they don’t object to it, just because they see no reason to do so. The best reason you can give them is that some day they might want community support and the best way to ensure that is to do the right thing for your neighbours when the opportunity arises.

The next thing I would do is to ask the Strata Manager to organise an EGM by proxy, if possible, so that the expense is kept to a minimum.  Even if you can’t do that, you need to get a hold of half a dozen of the official proxy forms and do some serious door-knocking both to explain your plans and to get people on-side.

As far as the actual expense of holding the EGM goes, I have no idea if that’s too much, too little or right on the money.  Maybe some of our strata manager readers can give us an opinion.  It could be, though, that your strata manager has a standard fee written into their contract.  It’s just a shame nobody explained this to you first.

Reading the act your motion would still have failed due to lack of a Quorum

12 Quorum
A motion submitted at a general meeting of an owners
corporation must not be considered, and an election must not be
held, unless there is a quorum present to consider and vote on
the motion or on the election.
There is a quorum for considering and voting on such a motion
or at such an election only if
(a) at least one-quarter of the number of persons entitled to vote on the motion or at the election is present, either personally or by duly appointed proxy, or
(b) at least one-quarter of the aggregate unit entitlement of the strata scheme is represented by the persons who are present and entitled to vote on the motion or at the election, either personally or by duly appointed proxy.

So with 9 owners you require 2.11 owners for quorum. I suspect you would require 3 to obtain the quorum. But as you require 75% to pass you would have required all 3 owners to vote in your favor.

Seems you can vote without a meeting

21 General meetings valid if attended only by chairperson
A general meeting of an owners corporation is, subject to the provisions of this Schedule relating to the quorum of the owners corporation, validly held even though the only person present at the meeting is the chairperson of the owners corporation.

Seems to me you organize a GM on a particular day and date but tell people not to attend but vote by proxy (postal vote) ensuring proxies are received by chairman on this date. Chairman then counts the proxies and declares the result. I’m sure Jimmy will tell me if I’ve got it wrong.