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our strata has only 9 units. is it legally possible to have 9 members in the Strata Committee, each representing the owners of each unit.
If not possible pleas advise why not?
the objects of this is to keep every owner informed of the strata affairs, encourage greater participation and more transparency, especially in the event that strata committee fails to inform the owners of its meetings and its minutes.
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Yes it is – we have 9 lots and have in the past had 9 members on the Committee. To be honest I can’t see the point, it means that every time you have a Committee meeting you are effectively having a general meeting. A Committee of 9 in a 9 lot building is overkill.
If you are concerned about transparency then perhaps you need to think about why the Committee has had issues with complying with the law – giving notice and providing minutes of Committee meetings are both requirements under the Act.
In the ACT and possibly similar elsewhere, a special resolution is required to form a committee of more than 7 members. The reason for this is that more than 7 on a committee can get a bit unwieldy. I tend to prefer committees with about 5 members – large enough to get a variety of perspectives but small enough to get through business reasonably efficiently.
Another way to handle this would be to have a small committee, perhaps just three since you have to have a chair, secretary and treasurer. A general meeting could pass a resolution to direct the small committee that certain classes of decisions of the owners corporation have to be taken to a general meeting. You could have it so that general meetings are required to decide all but the most routine and uncontroversial matters. The rules about notice to all owners, distribution of minutes etc that apply to general meetings would then apply to most of the meetings and all owners would be entitled to attend and vote.
While every owner can be on the committee in the ACT, there are downsides. In our complex of 19 townhouses, owners thought it was a good idea for everyone to be on the committee. This led to it being almost impossible to actually have a committee meeting, as a quorum (10 people) was hard to achieve. And there are no provisions for proxies or reduced quorum committee meetings .
the objects of this is to keep every owner informed of the strata affairs, encourage greater participation and more transparency.
If it’s all about transparency and communication, you might be better to look at a system like Stratabox, where everybody can be informed about everything (or as much as they want).
A small efficient committee that keeps people informed is always going to be better than a large group, half of whom don’t want to be there.
And on that note, I would pay special attention to the comments below about the quorum – if you get fewer than five members turning up, the meeting is a bust.
You can’t force people to join the committee and you can’t force them to attend once they’ve joined. If this is really about diluting the power of a tight, rusted-on core of owners, there are better ways.
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