Neither of these clauses spell out that both owners must sign a proxy form for it to be valid.
In fact, Section 24 confusingly says in subclause 4 ,”The voting rights of co-owners of a lot may not be exercised by them individually but may be exercised: (a) by a proxy (who may be one of them), or (b) as provided by subclause (5).
Then 24.5 says “If … the rights of co-owners of a lot are not exercised by a proxy as referred to in subclause (4), one of them may act as such a proxy: (a) if the other co-owners are absent or those who are present give their consent, or (b) if paragraph (a) does not apply—if he or she is the owner first named on the strata roll as one of the co-owners.
So, in short, one of the co-owners of a lot can’t vote unless they have been given a proxy vote (presumably by the other owner) unless the other owner isn’t there. But why would they need a proxy if the other owner WAS there?
Again, neither of these clauses refer directly to who must sign a proxy form. Also, I have discovered an opinion from a very experienced strata lawyer that individual co-owners can each have an allocation of proxy votes to carry, up to the maximum, because the law limiting the number of proxies any owner can hold, spelled out in Sched.1, 26.7 refers to “person” not “owner” or “lot”: ie “the total number of proxies that may be held by a person …”,
I’d interested to hear how that played out in the Tribunal.
But getting back to the point, I couldn’t find any direct reference to how many owners should sign proxy forms, but I have found mentions of this in strata management websites that say both signatures of co-owners should be on the forms.
This whole thing is a mess that Fair Trading would do well to clear up in the current strata law review.