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At our recent AGM I was told by the Strata Management (SM), the Owners Corporation (OC) can’t include general business as a item in the agenda. Evidently there are new changes to the Act that preclude general business as a item for AGMs.
Is this true?
Also, I was prevented from changing the order of items on the agenda. I wanted to move the item dealing with selection and use of an auditor to later in the meeting after examination of the financial statement. The SM, as Chairperson, prevented this.
Is this correct?
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Having read your other query in relation to by-laws, your strata manager sounds really helpful, not.
No to both questions – there have been no changes to the Act that preclude general business being included as an item on the agenda. General business is usually iincluded on agendas for meetings to enable people to raise anything that may not be covered, general concerns etc. Provided no resolutions are moved and approved under general business then there is no issue (you can’t move a resolution without notice).
You can change the order of resolutions – the Chair can rule against it but perhaps you can ask the other owners if they object and then ask the Chair why there is a problem.
Perhaps you should get someone else to chair the meeting, and next time ask the SM to show you exactly where in the legislation it says that something can’t be done.
@scotlandx said:
Having read your other query in relation to by-laws, your strata manager sounds really helpful, not … Perhaps you should get someone else to chair the meeting, and next time ask the SM to show you exactly where in the legislation it says that something can’t be done.Thanks scotlandx, I appreciate your comment. I(the EC) struggle with the SM to do and give a better service. Regards, Brandy
That’s ok!
If the EC is having problems with the strata manager perhaps they should start looking for a better one.
This sounds oddly familiar. In the last few weeks I have been having trouble with our manager just trying to get a meeting notice out on time. We had nothing out of the ordinary to put on the agenda and it should have been easy. There were various typos to fix and some changes to wording. I would email a list of what I thought were uncontroversial edits and she would only do some of them. On being questioned she told me certain things had to be where or how they were on the notice because it was required by the UTMA (ACT Unit Titles Act). I knew the Act did not specify such detail in its requirements for a meeting notice and when this was combined with some other matters it got me rather riled. Finally, I was told that the strata manager had adopted a policy of using some ISO standard for its meeting notices and certain fields were locked down. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me that in the first place instead of unnecessary nonsense about requirements of the UTMA. It’s made all the more confusing because we had generally had favourable impressions of this manager. Our EC is just hoping she was having a bad week.
“General business” has never been recognized as a valid agenda item (however common) and having it on an agenda creates a serious danger of resolutions being passed without due process.
There is nothing in the legislation or elsewhere that prevents you from including an agenda item of general business or any other business or anything else you want to call it. You can include items where particular information is noted but no resolution is attached. You can have an agenda item for discussion of the situation in Libya if you want to. Major listed companies have items for discussion and noting on their agendas as a matter of course.
It is up to the OC to decide what it wants on the agenda – as long as it includes what is required by the legislation that’s fine. It is true that often this is the only time some owners front up or communicate and the meeting is a good opportunity to raise any issues or concerns they may have.
An additional safeguard if there is any concern about confusion as to whether it is a resolution or merely for discussion/noting is to include a note in any agenda item like that making it clear that it is not a resolution. At the top put FOR NOTING/DISCUSSION.