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I am on an EC of five and will be unable to personally attend an upcoming EC meeting I am aware that the SSMA allows for me to nominate another EC member to vote on my behalf. What I was wondering was whether I am also able to provide that person with my own voting preferences for the listed motions. I had a look at the Act and this wasn’t clear. My strata manager said no.
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I don’t know what the Act says in NSW. I am in ACT where the Act is silent on proxy or absentee voting for EC meetings. However, it seems to me it would be very poor form for the remaining members of the EC to not count your view if the motions are notified and well understood by all. Since you are five, do you expect the matters to be split 3:2? If 4:1 or 5:0 are likely it won’t matter if your vote is not counted.
Schedule 3 paragraph 3 provides that you can appoint any owner to act on your behalf at an EC meeting. They don’t have to be an EC member, but they must be an owner.
Just find someone who thinks the same as you and appoint them for the meeting. You can’t compel them to vote a particular way – they are not your proxy, they are your alternate, which is different.
I presume that an Owner who is appointed to act on behalf of an EC member at an ECM will also be making up a quorum in some instances.
Is that correct and can that Owner be appointed to specifically to make up a quorum?
Also, does the appointee need to have this appointment in writing and do they have to declare this before the meeting or can they just turn up?
A quick clarification on this:
A proxy vote – either given to an EC member or a completely different person speaking on your behalf – has to be approved by the committee. You can’t “appoint” someone, but you can request that the committee agrees to them speaking and voting on your behalf.
And for that reason, you can’t appoint a proxy to make up a quorum. If there is no quorum then the committee can’t vote on whether or not to accept the proxy.
FYI, the quorum is based on 50 percent of the numbers of members of the EC agreed upon at the last AGM. So, if an EC allows its numbers to get too low through resignations and the like, it may have trouble even reaching the quorum required to appoint new members (as it can do to fill vacancies).
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.
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