@Panamenke said:
The last EC meeting had 5 items discussed and approved under “General Business” and I have major concerns about the transparency of this.
The last 5 years of Executive Committee meetings in my SP have the problem of item after item being introduced (not on the agenda) and resolved and then recorded under the heading of general business. And general business is never on the agenda. As i posted below; 12 resolutions under general business at the last meeting.
These are generally people who think that the “mechanics” of an informal meeting will suffice for an Executive Committee meeting in strata scheme. They are sadly mistaken but they are also well protected by NCAT who are always reluctant to intervene in the machinations of any particular SP. NCAT do not micro-manage (as they call it) SPs and this sort of defect in procedure comes under micro management.
It is actually a denial of procedural fairness as you have no opportunity to veto things you have no notice of.
I refer to Sch 3 cl 11(2) and the power of owners to “veto” an EC from making a decision on an EC agenda item. Cannot veto what you have no notice of AND
Sch 3 cl 6(3) actually requires owners be given a detailed agenda.
Nothing detailed about an agenda which does not have items on it that later appear in minutes as resolutions.
Both these pieces of legislation are found in Sch 3 of the SSMA i.e. the Constitution of the Executive Committee. Both are reduced to being meaningless if an EC can introduce what ever they like as general business, with our without general business actually appearing on the agenda. It was not the intent of the Parliament to have these two pieces of legislation be meaningless.
I can assure you this sort of thing devalues your SPs “brand” and discourages strata savvy buyers. I would not buy if i saw EC minutes full of resolutions regarding matters not on the agenda – that says “run by cowboys, head for the exit turnstile”. It’s not a good look when so many SPs actually follow the requirement to give notice of a matter before they pass a resolution.
If you ever end up at NCAT over this sort of thing then this might help:
“I accept in effect the applicant’s submission that before a decision can be made by the owners corporation whether at its general meeting or by its executive committee meeting there must be due notice.”
M Balding in Bales v The Owners Corporation SP 12303 (Strata and Community Schemes) [2009] NSWCTTT 296 (2 June 2009)
Member Balding, that is ex-Deputy Chairperson Balding, is referring to notice of the item at an AGM, not notice of the meeting. Note she states notice of the item is required even at the EC meeting level.
It isn’t rocket science; if your EC are not doing it, i.e. notice before resolution, then it is because they don’t want to.
It isn’t a hard concept to understand.
Notice – resolution – action.