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Our committee members re-elect themselves every AGM by limiting the number of committee members and arming themselves with proxies. Is there anyway the owners can put a use by date on committee members? e.g. a motion or by-law saying five years and you must step down. Nothing changes here because we have the same committee members doing the same things with the same contractors etc etc. Things need to change, and we owners have no say. Thanks for any advice.
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Welcome to my world. I am involved in a few stratas with one having the same two folk in place for 30 years.
A few things come to mind when I read your posting:
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- Any motion you suggest, to have long lasting effect requires majority support at an AGM and that such a motion will not be reversed at a subsequent AGM. So, in my experience (in several stratas), limiting the tenure of individuals as you propose or by any other means to my knowledge is not possible;
- Changing the number of people on a committee say by adding people to a committee by asking the Tribunal, NCAT, to do so is not within the powers of NCAT. I know this because I tried this and failed; and
- What is possible is that you could apply to NCAT – claiming the scheme is dysfunctional – with evidence that the committee as it is has not served the owners well. Ensure you have PROOF of the wrong doings that have transpired eg committee members lining their own pockets or attending to (common property) repairs that benefit them or their mates or billing the Owners’ Corp for matters that belong to individual lot owners and how this has been to the disadvantage of non committee members; and
- NCAT, when confronted with (3) above, may agree with you that it is dysfunctional and that a compulsory strata manager should be appointed. That means that the committee is sacked and a new agent will run the place without consulting any committee member or for that matter any owner. Note for this to occur you MUST include in your application that you seek an ORDER for compulsory strata management. For more on that part of the Act, Google
STRATA SCHEMES MANAGEMENT ACT 2015 – SECT 237
Best of luck.
limiting the tenure of individuals as you propose or by any other means to my knowledge is not possible;
Owners corporations can’t limit the tenure of committee members. The right to be elected to the committee is granted to all owners via the Act and resolutions of the owners corp can’t overturn the law.
What you can do is to check that they are entitled to stand by looking at the Act and regulations closely and seeing who might be invalid – and having alternative candidates ready to go. In my experience, these committees get very slack once they’ve been in power for a while and forget to line up their nominees and make sure they are all “financial” or validly nominated.
Just don’t telegraph your plans too much and make sure the elections are carried out according to the Act – blank sheets of paper and all that.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
Hi
I can’t understand how they can limit the numbers, as you can have up to 9 members https://www.nsw.gov.au/housing-and-construction/strata/roles
Apparently, a few years ago proxy awarding was revised to avoid proxy farming – for schemes with 20 lots or fewer, a person can only hold one proxy vote. In schemes that have over 20 lots, the person can be proxy for up to 5% of the total lots.
If you want to join the committee you probably need to put in time and energy speaking with other owners to understand what they’re happy / unhappy with and putting your case forward for being elected to the committee.
I can’t understand how they can limit the numbers, as you can have up to 9 members https://www.nsw.gov.au/housing-and-construction/strata/roles
The owners corp sets the numbers before each election, to a maximum of nine.
The regulations set out how elections must be conducted in NSW strata and the first thing you do is to declare the names of people nominated prior to the meeting, then call for nominations from people at the meeting.
Then there is a vote taken to set the number of members which may be a maximum of nine and a minimum of three for a large scheme (over 100 lots) and one for a small scheme.
If there are more nominations that places, you hold an election and you do that by handing out blank sheets of paper on which owners write the names of their preferred candidates. Pre-printed voting papers are invalid.
You are right on the number of proxies, but then it depends on how many owners participate in the meeting either in person or by proxy. In a scheme of only 20 lots, five members of the committee could easily dominate with a combination of their own votes, plus one proxy vote each, then count unit entitlements as well as the fact that a 50 percent turn-out is almost unheard of.
There are ways to combat this but they involve scrutinising procedures and opposing owners’ right to vote and motivating other owners to support you. In other words, it’s possible but it’s not easy.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
Only the owners corp can, the committee can’t and if they that is something HH could raise. However, if no one is in the meeting and they have the proxies I suppose by default then they hold the power.
That’s how it works in most schemes that have this problem. The committee rocks up at the AGM, proxies and nominations in hand. They set the agendas and dominate the meetings and eventually other owners don’t even bother to show up,
They often use their exclusive access to owners’ email addresses and committee minutes to push their agendas and undermine attempts to change anything.
This can include listing the committee members who are in place and who will be standing again, in the agenda for the upcoming AGMs.
Barring something disastrous occurring financially, most other owners will lose interest and just leave things the way they are. This is so commonplace that the government had to change the rules on quorums for AGMs just so they could go ahead.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
Hey Jimmy
I think or perhaps I’m misunderstanding Huyton Huntley (HH), as they write:
“committee members re-elect themselves every AGM by limiting the number of committee members”
And as you say,
The owners corp sets the numbers before each election, to a maximum of nine.
Only the owners corp can, the committee can’t and if they that is something HH could raise. However, if no one is in the meeting and they have the proxies I suppose by default then they hold the power. Sounds like to change it HH will have their work cut out for them. Have you heard of how anyone has tackled this previously?
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