Alinka – in response to your questions and in the context of the circumstances that you’ve outlined in your posts, the answers to each of those questions is YES, and it’s also worth noting that “Extraordinary General Meeting” is just the descriptor used to define any Meeting of an Owners Corporation that’s not an Annual General Meeting!
However, I’m afraid that it’s not always as straight forward as that; as I often say with the practical application of Strata Law, it depends.
For example, if an Owner proposed to undertake renovations to their townhouse, and they’d obtained quotations, selected a preferred contractor, checked their licensing and insurance details, agreed upon a preferred start date with them, and then after approaching Council they were informed that it required letter from their Owners Corporation (O/C) stating its prior consent to the works in accordance with the SCMA.
Assume that Owner then directly approached their Executive Committee Secretary to convene and EGM (which the Secretary can themselves do) in order to consider a Motion to consent to their proposed renovations, or even if they even went as far as providing a requisition for a EGM supported by 25% of all Owners, then in such circumstances, whilst after discussions with other Members the Secretary would be correct in imposing a requirement to have that Owner meet the costs of the Meeting and for the drafting and Registration of a Special By-Law if necessary, they’d be hard-pushed to claim that it was impracticable to convene an EGM – even if the date of the next AGM was only a few months off.
Impracticable from whose perspective? As I said, it depends on the circumstances, but as you requested, some relevant provisions of the SCMA are:
– Re the role of the Strata Manager with respect to convening and chairing Meetings, and of the Secretary’s to still assume their role; and,
– Re the ability of Owners to requisition a General Meeting and the subsequent role of the Secretary at Clause 31 (3) of Schedule 2; and more generally,
– I’d urge you and your like-minded Owners to read THIS excellent publication of the NSW Department of Fair Trading.