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Felix – should the Chairman refuse to conduct a vote by those personally present prior to the commencement of the procedural part of the Meeting, whilst still permitting the absent owner to actively participate in that Meeting as opposed to just observing, then owners should advise the Chairman that the subsequent Meeting procedure would not comply with Schedule 2 Sect 12(2) and 22 (1) & (2) of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) and they’ll be applying for Orders under Sect 153 to invalidate any resolutions then taken at that Meeting.
As a point of compromise, I’d also inform the Chairman that if a Motion to accept electronic technologies as a means to facilitate owner participation is put as a Motion on the Agenda for the next General Meeting, then you and other owners would of course be prepared to consider it in the context of then current Legislation (there may be new strata laws by then).
In the event that there’s no compromise, I’m not a great fan of the adjudication process particularly and as Sect 153 gives an Adjudicator a number of reasons to refuse Orders, such as where a non-compliance with the Act “did not adversely affect any person”, or where that “would not have resulted in a failure to pass the resolution..”. So unless those “outs” are negated by whatever eventuates at the Meeting I’d be somewhat skeptical about your success with that approach… except for the fact that the Skyper is the Secretary.
The prime role of the Secretary is “to prepare and distribute minutes of Meetings of the owners corporation….” (Sect 22), so unless the Skyper requests that role to be delegated for the Meeting and that’s accepted by those present, then the physical absence of the Secretary may carry some weight with an Adjudicator; after all it’s difficult enough to take accurate minutes when the taker’s personally present, but when they’re on Skype…!