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I am a new member of our EC…after 4 months moving in to the complex of 16 lots. At the EC meetings everyone is invited and everyone talks…mayhem!
I now find that, 5 months ago, the minutes show that:
“Future format for Executive Committee Meetings – It was proposed and seconded that any owners present at a meeting be invited to vote on any item on the Agenda”
Absolute mayhem!
Can the EC make this decision? ….. Is it legal according to the Strata Act?
The group is very friendly and many have been here for some time and I am happy about that. There are some issues with cash flow that need to be immediately addressed and for this reason alone, I feel that quick and prompt action needs to be taken. The smaller group (EC of 6 members) would be more workable.
What do you think?
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Hi Charlie
While I don’t think it’s illegal, it may or may not be the best scenario. Whether that is the case depends on how your scheme runs (and has up to now run). With 16 lots, and 6 on the EC, it’s fairly small so everyone may well know each other.
In the strict sense, the Act states that EC agenda & meeting times must be displayed on the noticeboard in advance. Also, it states that owners may attend an EC meeting; it goes on to say that owners may not address the EC meeting unless invited to do so. It does not say anything about owners voting at an EC meeting: that is reserved for an AGM or EGM.
Following that logic, you would need to put the EC motion to the AGM, but it would likely need a by law that would consider what constitutes quorum, veto rights, proxies etc in a scenario where anyone who shows up can have a voice.
That could be tricky, but on the flip side, most of us would crave a unit complex where the owners and the EC are engaged, friendly and prepared to ‘muck in’ with the goings-on. If you take the option to run the EC meetings strictly to the rules, you may create suspicion amongst the owners who no longer have a voice on issues that affect them. Perhaps a compromise would be to get the agenda to the owners earlier and then ask the owners to submit their thoughts prior to the meeting – they can still attend of course – this would then let the EC decide on balance of votes to expedite the process.
What you describe is not strictly legal, but if it works and everyone is happy with it what is the probem. Far better to have everyone involved with the decision making than having none of them intrested (as in most strata) and having decisoions made by people with their own agendas.
To make it legal just have them declare the meeting General Meeting rather than EC meeting.
As much as I like the idea of mass participation in the meeting, I can’t see how this can be made legal by the passing of a by-law. There are clearly defined processes for EC meetings and general meetings and different standards of validity for the decisions they make, not least the requirements of notice periods, etc. The law dictates the maximum number of members of an EC at nine with clear rules as described in previous posts, for participation of non-members.
This is all fine … until it isn’t. For instance, what happens when someone who is in a minority on the EC on an issue stacks the meeting with their supporters? The losing EC members would then, quite rightly, say the vote had no legal validity and you’d all be in it up to your eyeballs
If you want to keep the community involved, perhaps you can adopt “Standing Orders” that allow the EC members to take a poll of the owners present before the EC members only vote on the issue.
Or you can make your EC meetings General Meetings (although that restricts all decisions to items that are on the agenda).
But by-laws of an Owners Corp can’t supersede superior laws – in this case the strata Act itself – and if you go ahead with these mass vote all your decisions could be subject to legal challenges by any owner who doesn’t like the outcomes.
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 agree with Jimmy – the Act sets out specific requirements for EC composition and procedure, you can’t override that with a by-law. Any decisions made in that way could be challenged.
Re the resolution that “any owners present at a meeting be invited to vote on any item on the Agenda” – this simply doesn’t work. If the EC is made up of 6 members, then the number of votes required to pass an EC resolution is determined by that number. If you have a situation where other owners present are invited to vote, some may vote, some may not – how would you then determine what the number of votes would be to pass a resolution?
You can’t declare an EC meeting to be a General Meeting – different requirements for notice and agenda apply to the two types of meeting.
As a general observation, a smaller EC is more effective and ideally an odd number of EC members is preferable, so you don’t have a tied vote.
You can’t declare an EC meeting to be a General Meeting – different requirements for notice and agenda apply to the two types of meeting.
But you can declare a future meeting as a GM provided you supply the correct notice and agenda (EC requires an agenda as well).
EC meeting requires 72 hours notice.
GM requires 7 days notice.
That’s right, in which case it is a GM, and there is no issue as to whether it is an EC meeting.
The concern here is that it was resolved:
“Future format for Executive Committee Meetings – It was proposed and seconded that any owners present at a meeting be invited to vote on any item on the Agenda”
In that case, you can’t turn the EC meeting into a GM by declaring it to be a GM at that time.
@kiwipaul said:
…To make it legal just have them declare the meeting General Meeting rather than EC meeting.It does sound like what you are having is, in effect, frequent general meetings. In a small enough group that could work and be legal. It seems to me that perhaps all you need is a stronger chair for the meeting to avoid the mayhem and a little discipline to make each of these meetings a properly-called general meeting. Perhaps you should propose that meeting procedure be an agenda item?
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