Our building (~50 lots) uses a strata manager, but in the recent past the Annual General Meetings have been held at irregular intervals. Under the previous Strata law, AGMs were due to be held on the anniversary of the first AGM, and traditionally they were held each February. But after a new Executive Committee took over, our AGMs were held at odd intervals; over the last eight years only six AGMs have been held, some at intervals of less than 12 months, but most at longer periods apart. When I raised this with the strata manager, she indicated that the time for holding of AGMs was up to the EC to decide. As no-one knew when the building’s first AGM was held (some time in the 1970s), my attempt to get regular AGMs organised went nowhere. 

Now, under the 2015 law, S.18 states that the AGM must be held “once in each financial year of the corporation.” Naively, I had hoped that this meant that we had to have an AGM between 1 July and 30 June – but when I mentioned this to the strata manager, she said our building had a different financial year. She wasn’t sure when that ended, so I am none the wiser when we are supposed to hold AGMs.

Can anyone explain how a strata corporation’s “financial year” is determined?

If it is dated from the most recent AGM, which is more than a year ago, how does that affect the timing of AGMs, and does the start of the new law alter things?

There have been some “Extraordinary General Meetings” (to deal with new by-laws arising from apartment renovations), at which our strata manager distributes a financial statement. Does this affect the building’s “financial year”?

We get financial statements at AGMs and at EGMs, but due to the randomness of both, there are periods that the financial statements do not cover, and the differing periods for the statements make it impossible to know that the corporation’s financial affairs have been properly managed. So if the owners can enforce a regular set of AGMs, it would be a good thing. Anyone with ideas of how to organize this?