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I believe proxy holders at general meetings are limited to five per cent of the number of units in the building. I was at an AGM the other day where the agenda had gone out asking owners not to give their proxies to the chair – because a lot of the votes would be wasted due to the limits – but to one of the committee members instead and then provided a list of the committee members they could give their proxies to.
On the night, for the first time in ten years, there was an election – one owner foolishly thought there was a chance they could be elected. Now the proper system for an election is that you write the names of the people you want to vote for on a blank sheet of paper. This was pretty much observed, although the strata manager provided a sheet with 20 spaces for names (even though the maximum size of the committee is nine).
Then, lo and behold, the page from the agenda with all the names of the committee members was projected on to the screen for everyone to dutifully copy on to their voting sheets. The poor deluded sod who was standing for election had to ask for his name to be written up on a whiteboard.
Why has there not been an election for 10 years, you ask? Because the committee makes sure that if anybody is thinking of quitting, they do it between AGMs so that their hand-picked replacement can be in place before the next one.
Then the committee all nominate for the nine spots, they all distribute the proxies between them, vote for each other, and everybody (apart from this one somewhat naive owner) knows there’s no point in even putting their hand up.
As far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing illegal in all this. But even so, the committee is pretty much a closed shop with, someone at the meeting said, some members not even knowing why they’re on it except to fill a seat a less compliant owner might otherwise occupy.
So here’s my question, given that this is arguably not in the spirit of the anti-proxy farming provisions of the Act, even though it follows the letter of the law, what chance would the failed candidate have of getting it turned over at NCAT?
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… what chance would the failed candidate have of getting it turned over at NCAT?
None. If it’s not illegal, what would the grounds be for having it overturned? It sounds like all the provisions of the proxy limitations were observed, and meticulously so. There are recently added provisions under the Act where you can ask a majority of owners at a general meeting to remove office-bearers from their positions or members from the committee. But unless you are prepared to launch a grass-roots campaign on a specific topic – such as a decision that you think is wrong and harms the building – you have buckley’s chance of getting that kind of support – especially when the proxies are harvested again.
The tribunal is not going to overturn an election unless there is a clear breach of the law and there isn’t, as far as I can tell. They might even admire the committee for its efficient use of its perfectly legal powers.
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