Voting at Special General Meetings in a Community Title Estate

Beverley Hoskinson-Greene of our legal sponsors Makinson & d’Apice has provided us with a definitive response.  All I can say is, I thought strata was complicated!  Thanks, Bev.

The members of the Community Association are:

• Subsidiary bodies – which includes precinct schemes, neighbourhood schemes and strata schemes; and
• Owners of community development lots (ie single lots that have not been subdivided into anything else).

In the case of Seven Seas’ Community Association, there are 5 neighbourhood associations (neighbourhood schemes), each of which is a subsidiary body.  Each of the neighbourhood associations is a member of the community association.  That means that the member of the community association  is the neighbourhood association itself, not the owners of lots in the neighbourhood association.

When the community association holds its meeting (Special General Meeting – all meetings other than an Annual General Meeting are called Special General Meetings) to approve the grant of the easement over community property, each neighbourhood association must cast its votes by proxy.  The proxy form may specify how the proxy is to vote on a particular matter and, if it does so, the proxy must vote in that way otherwise the vote is invalid.

There are provisions in the Community Land Management Act for separate meetings of neighbourhood associations and precinct associations, but there is no requirement that a unanimous resolution of a community association must first be passed by special or unanimous resolution of a neighbourhood or precinct association.

So the unanimous resolution by the community association to grant an easement over part of its community property requires the passing of a resolution where no vote is cast against that resolution by any of its members. This means that if one or more of the members abstain from voting and the rest vote in favour, the resolution will be passed as a unanimous resolution.  It also means that if one member votes against it, the resolution will fail.

One further point to note is that a community association can only grant an easement over community property; it can’t grant an easement over land that is within a neighbourhood or precinct association and is neighbourhood or precinct property.

I would take that to mean that a Neighbourhood Association’s lot owners could vote 3-2 or 4-1 in favour of a proposal and when the NA then voted at the Community level, it would still be considered a solid yes vote in terms of whether or not the vote was unanimous. In other words, one owner can’t prevent a unanimous vote but one Neighbourhood Association can.