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We had a General Meeting mid-year which was petitioned by more than 25% of owners. The minutes that were distributed have significant errors and omissions (in our humble opinion). After the minutes were distributed these errors were emailed to the Chair but the minutes have not been corrected.
We will soon have an AGM and a majority of people at the AGM will (probably) want the minutes corrected. What happens if the minutes are not accepted (in the vote)? Can we force the minutes to be corrected?
Some of the omissions are important e.g. we suggested a motion that the EC publish ALL decisions in minutes distributed to all owners. The Chair asked the SM if this was required and the SM suggested that the EC could make decisions outside of formal EC meetings and in these cases decisions do not need to be published to owners. Auuugh!
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The ‘corrections’, or more properly amendments, to the minutes should be voted on at the next general meeting. That meeting will either accept the minutes as distributed or pass a resolution to make some or all of your proposed amendments. It’s up to the meeting to vote on them. A majority of the meeting may or may not agree that your recollection of the meeting is more accurate than the minutes as distributed.
As for EC decisions, they are not decisions until they are resolutions of an EC meeting. Then they should be minuted. The Act requires that EC minutes be distributed to owners.
Neither the SSMA nor the Interpretation Act 1987 contain a definition of “minutes’.
The Macquarie Dictionary defines “minutes” in these terms:
“the official record of the proceedings at a meeting of a society, board, committee, council, or other body.”
In my view a document is not the “minutes” of a meeting until it becomes the official record of the meeting by being adopted at a subsequent meeting.
The position about minutes is made unnecessarily confusing because of the wording of various provisions of the SSMA which use the word without distinguishing between draft minutes and official/adopted minutes. In the parts quoted below, I have added in bold words to differentiate the two types of minutes:
Section 22 Minutes(1) Records to be kept
The owners corporation must keep full and accurate (official) minutes of its meetings that include (official) minutes of all motions passed at its meetings.
Schedule 1 paragraph 8
8 Matters that must be included in notice of general meetings(1) The following matters must be included in, or accompany, the notice given of all general meetings—
(a) a form of motion to confirm the (draft) minutes of the last general meeting of any kind,
Section 43 Functions of secretary of owners corporationThe functions of a secretary of an owners corporation include the following—
(a) to prepare and distribute (draft) minutes of meetings of the owners corporation and submit a motion for confirmation (as official) of the (draft) minutes of any meeting of the owners corporation at the next such meeting,
Draft minutes may fail to be accurate through inattention, sloppiness or deliberate action. The requirement is for “full and accurate” minutes which, in my view, requires the amendment of draft minutes to make them full and accurate before they are capable of being adopted as official minutes.
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