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One person can be secretary, treasurer,and chairperson at the same time and this could happen in strata schemes when no one wants to be in the committee or in very small schemes. Of course if there are 3 or more committee members then it would be better that the roles are split. My experience is that when one person holds multiple roles it’s to control everything.
If 25% of owners request a general meeting then one must be called. This might be a way around for the significant number of owners not having been notified of the AGM. Of course the same owners will once again not be notified if the reasons for the previous failure is not fixed. I believe 21 days is needed for notice by mail and 14 days for notice by email.
If a potential purchaser either directly or through a solicitor requested the contact details of all owners from the SM then this could be odd depending on the circumstances.
If the lot seller confirms that this is a bonafide potential purchaser then this would be ok. Here I’m assuming that only strata roll and hence the contact details on the strata roll are being requested and not other contact details. The strata roll contains the nominated contact details which may not be the regular or personal contact details of an owner.
But if there is no direct confirmation or otherwise from the seller then this should be treated cautiously. We’re all being advised to not hand over personal information willynilly to protect us from scammers. Also that “purchaser” could really be someone trying to circumvent a restraining to locate an ex who happens to lives in the same scheme.
The better way would have been for the seller to have the strata roll on hand to make available as required either directly or through their realestate agent.
Irrespective of the above the SM has erred in accepting the directions of a solicitor representing a non-owner (whether a bonafide potential purchasor or not) to cancel a strata meeting.
I’m always amazed that owners have little to no idea of the rules of strata. (Here I’m not commenting on the particular circumstances of the OP which no one knows and are not necessary to know.)
While strata legislation isn’t perfect it does set out what needs to be done and is easy to read. In any case it’s the first point of call before reading the by-laws which could be considered as fine-tuning for a particular scheme. By-laws don’t replace or override legislation.
Probably the biggest issue with legislation is that it doesn’t deal with the power trips of committtees and strata managers. If the OP’s scheme is one of those clicky ones where politics overrides legislation and even commonsense then I can understand a hesitency to seek approval. The reality however is that it will come back to bite someone just maybe not today.
If you are fortunate to live in a decent and reasonable scheme then you should obtain that by-law. It’s a very easy process costing a few hundred dollars (at most) and a few hours of your time. It will buy you a lot of peace of mind. 🙂
My experience is that the committee will never say they have refused to make a document available. At best they will make a ton of excuses (to muddy the waters) and at worst will just stand up in court and declare they made the document available last month as happened to us.