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At a recent Extraordinary General Meeting of the Owners Corporation of our Sydney strata of 42 apartments, a motion was ‘carried’ and electronic voting was approved for our next General Meeting as is required. The next meeting happens to be our Annual General Meeting and we now all have the agenda.
What was NOT in the mailing, however, was an electronic voting form which we’re all used to now, and some of us were expecting, indeed hoping for. When questioned, our strata manager said ‘strata managers haven’t been including the forms or facilitating electronic voting at AGMs because it makes annual strata committee elections’ problematical.
We smell a rat. There’s a contentious issue on the agenda which I won’t go into. Suffice to say, certain owners have been campaigning harder than ScoMo and Shorty and would like to see who votes in favour, and especially against, a special resolution for their own extremely controversial renovations.
Is the strata manager within the rules not including the electronic voting form to discourage electronic voting, even though it was approved as is required?
Is he correct asserting ‘strata managers are not sending out electronic voting forms for the AGM’? (Which to me does sound shifty.)
Can we just use an old form or make up our own for our votes to be counted?
I hope someone finds this interesting and can help 🙂
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How is electronic voting any different from absentee voting with a form or directing a proxy to vote a particular way, also with a form?
On the matter of electing a committee, an absentee member could write on the form that they wish to vote for or against particular candidate, should they stand, if nominations are not already known. They could nominate someone and indicate their intention to vote for them if that nomination were seconded by anyone at the meeting. They might alternatively line someone up to do that.
I once had an absentee owner use our form to specifically vote against me and another committee member if we were renominated. This did not present a technical problem and the votes for and against us both were noted in the minutes.
Have a look at Regulation 15 (3) here: The secretary MUST provide an electronic voting form with instruction on how to use it.
Your strata manager may be talking about schemes where there has not been a resolution to adopt electronic voting.
Anyway, the secretary and strata manager may be out of time if the have to get this to you within the seven days stipulated.
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.
I delivered a page of Motions for our May 30 AGM at end April. The notice of meeting with agenda was received on May 20 without any of my Motions. Strata Manager said they had not received the page I delivered. With one week to go, can I get the motions into the agenda?
If the agenda hasn’t been issued yet, then you can insist that it should include your motions. That is your legal right.
If it has been issued (and it really should have been) the only way to get your motion included would be for them to delay the meeting to allow and amended motion to be circulated.
The regulation notice period between the agenda going out and the meeting date is seven days but that has to take into account potential delays from postage and public holidays so it’s really closer to 10 days.
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.
You have 28 days from the date of the meeting to apply for mediation at Fair Trading, an essential prerequisite to seeking orders under Section 24 and Section 25 of the Act.
You appear to have a case that the meeting was handled improperly by electronic voting forms not being issued and that it would have had a different result because several people might have voted against the motions, but for the aggressive way the meetings are conducted (it would help if you could get their support.)
If your strata manager won’t follow the law because it’s too complicated, it’s time to get a new strata manager before they do some real damage.
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.
It is preferable to have electronic voting for single issue EGM where owners tick YES or NO.
Electronic voting is definitely not suitable for large Strata AGMs as the Owners present may propose amendment to motions on the AGM Agenda and those amendments too have to be voted. And this happens and can happen on the day of the AGM. Also at AGM Owners decide on number of Members on Strata Committee, then Owners can file their nominations in addition to those already filed before the AGM date. It’s for the Secretary to decide whether a particular General Meeting is suitable for electronic voting. There is a lot of to & fro at an AGM and hence electronic voting at AGM isn’t suitable while EGMs with one or two issues are.
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