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I have just discovered there is no time requirement for publishing minutes of an Annual General Meeting. Why is this, does anyone know please?
We had a noisy AGM two weeks ago with several controversial issues discussed and voted on, some with amendments. Some were deferred for various sensible reasons and here at our block of 34, we’re finding it difficult to remember exactly what’s supposed to be happening.
An agenda for an Extraordinary General Meeting, to be held in two weeks, has arrived before we even get the minutes for the recent AGM. Things to be considered at the upcoming EGM relate closely to what was went on at that AGM.
Our Strata Manager, Slim Shady, who has fibbed and fudged minutes before, simply says ‘The NSW Strata Titles Act doesn’t say when the minutes have to be sent out’ and he’s right according to the NSW Office of Fair Trading. Except we have to get them before the next General Meeting, apparently.
‘The goodies’ reckon they’re cooking up something. Can we do something?
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If the agenda has been sent out for the EGM, your strata manager has a problem because the agenda for a meeting must include a motion for approval of the minutes of the last meeting and a copy of the minutes of that meeting.
A strata scheme can set its own rules for the publication of minutes but they still must abide by the Act which says that the minutes of the previous meeting must be attached to the notice of the next meeting unless owners have already received them (see below).
You should probably inform the EC and the strata manager that the general meeting needs to be delayed so that the minutes of the previous meeting can be attached to the agenda, otherwise you will challenge the validity of the planned meeting.
While they are reorganising this, you should put a motion to the proposed reorganised meeting that minutes from a general meeting will, in future, be sent out within, say, 14 days of the general meeting having occurred. This both complies with the Act and means owners don’t have to wait until the next general meeting is called before getting the minutes of the last one.
This may mean “double dipping” since it would be sensible to re-issue the minutes with the agenda of the next general meeting. But that’s surely better than everyone waiting a year before finding out what has and hasn’t been agreed.
33 Notice of general meeting to include copy of previous minutes
Notice of a general meeting must be accompanied by a copy of the minutes of the latest general meeting if the notice is to an owner who has not previously been given a copy of those minutes or who, before the notice is given, makes a request for a copy of those minutes that has not been complied with.
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Jimmy’s suggestion is essentially what we must do in the ACT from our Act. Minutes must be sent out within 7 days of the meeting. [If the meeting was conducted with a ‘reduced quorum’ then the minutes must be accompanied by a form that lets owners know that the decisions of the meeting do not take effect for 28 days and can be overturned by a petition of >50% of owners.] Then the minutes must be sent out again with the notice of the next general meeting and that meeting would have a motion to accept the minutes of the previous meeting.
Nobody seems to think there is anything odd about this arrangement.