Victorian law is pretty much the same as NSW in most of the relevant areas except that if a special levy – known there as extraordinary fees – is more than double the annual budget, it has to be approved by a special resolution (unless “immediate expenditure is or was necessary to ensure safety or to preventsignificant loss or damage to persons or property”).
And a special resolution is where it get’s tricky. Victoria’s regulations on special resolutions are governemd by everything from the number of owners who didn’t turn up to wind direction (OK, not that, but it’s complicated).
Section 96 of the Victorian Act defines a special resolution as :
A special resolution of an owners corporation is a resolution passed by—
(a) if a ballot or poll is taken, 75% of the total lot entitlements of all the lots affected by the owners corporation; or
(b) in any other case, 75% of the total votes for all the lots affected by the owners corporation.
What??? But wait, there’s more … How about an Interim Special Resolution?
97 Interim special resolutions
(1) If, at a meeting or by ballot, the vote in favour of a matter requiring a special resolution is at least 50% of the total votes for all lots affected by the owners corporation and the vote against the resolution is not more than 25% of those votes, the resolution is to be taken to be passed as an interim special resolution.
(2) If the interim special resolution is passed at a meeting, notice of the interim special resolution and the minutes of the meeting at which the interim special resolution was passed must be forwarded to all lot owners within 14 days of the meeting.
(3) If the interim special resolution is passed by ballot, notice of the interim special resolution (including the text of the resolution) must be forwarded to all lot owners within 14 days of the close of the ballot.
(4) The notice under subsection (2) or (3) must state that the interim special resolution will become a special resolution at the end of 29 days after it was passed unless lot owners who hold more than 25% of the total votes for all the lots affected by the owners corporation petition the secretary against the resolution.
(5) An interim special resolution becomes a special resolution of the owners corporation on the day that is 29 days after the day the interim special resolution was passed unless lot owners who hold more than 25% of the total votes for all the lots affected by the owners corporation petition the secretary against the resolution.
Note: The effect of subsection (5) is that an interim special resolution cannot be acted on for 29 days after it is passed and cannot be acted on at all if a petition is received by the secretary within that 29-day period.
Simple, huh?