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If you have a triad of office bearers who always write their own agendas, move their own motions, write their own minutes and then act upon them by voting as a block, regardless of the best interests of the owners and the owners corporation, is there any way they can be removed as office bearers?
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I think this is a very loaded question.
And I’m not really sure what the complaint is.
If you have a triad of office bearers, it’s because the AGM, to which you were invited, decided by a majority vote to have a triad. Did you attend? Did you nominate yourself for a position?
It’s the EC’s duty to write the agenda for meetings, and it must include any motions which they (or you) have submitted beforehand.
It’s normal meeting procedure for the submitter of a motion to move it, and speak for it.
It’s the EC’s duty to write the minutes. If you disagree with what’s written, you can (speak and) vote against them at the next meeting.
All decisions are carried by a “block” of at least 50% of votes, so maybe the majority just thought the motions were a good idea or gave proxies to people they thought were doing a good job.
How about giving us a few examples of the decisions which were not in “the best interests of the owners”?
Roo, I think you’re being a bit hard on Peta. It’s not difficult to imagine the situation she’s in and it’s a fair question, asked in desperation I suspect. It is my experience that sometimes an Executive Committee and its office bearers can get themselves into position through inappropriate means (proxy gathering) to feather their own nests in a variety of ways to improve their lot (double entered intended). And they do this at the expense of other owners and residents who don’t know the way the system works. By neglecting their duties as well as pushing their own, private barrows ahead of the interests of the strata.
That’s not to say you don’t make some valid points, Roo.
But importantly, anyone can put an item on an agenda for a General Meeting so long as they know a General Meeting is coming up and hey, Roo, isn’t that one of the tricks? Don’t flag a meeting is coming up and ask if anyone wants to put something on the agenda?
When it comes to Executive Committee Meetings, the type of Executive Committee poor Peta’s having to deal with probably just ignores anything she says whether it be in writing or by word of mouth. That’s the way it is where I live.
I suggest Peta seeks mediation through the NSW Office of Fair Trading if she’s in NSW.
Peta, apply for mediation against the Owners Corporation immediately through the strata section of the NSW Office of Fair Trading mentioning Section 162 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act which covers the compulsory appointment of a strata managing agent because the management structure of your strata “is not functioning, or is not functioning satisfactorily”. They are the words in the Act. You have to try for mediation first, then you can seek an Adjudication for this if mediation isn’t successful. Start now. Get the form and $78 in the mail. You’ll feel better and the Executive Committee and Strata Manager will hear about it soon enough. Ask your concerned neighbours to join you or even chip in.
Dear me.
For a start, going back to the adjourned meeting, we have just had a very long and tedious discussion about the ins and outs of adjourned meetings.
The discussion can be found here:
http://www.flatchat.com.au/forum/another-day-in-paradise/no-quorum-at-agm/
For your purposes, you can’t turn up at an adjourned meeting with proxies and use them. Those proxies have to be in place at the original meeting. So it is arguable that the current EC is invalid.
So, you could say to this recalcitrant trio that their election was invalid, but it may be a bit of a waste of time arguing with them, because they sound like utter pains (not to mention very rude).
From what you have said, it sounds like your scheme is not functioning (and at least one of the issues you raise could have serious health and safety/liability issues) and you may likely have grounds to have a compulsory strata manager appointed. To do that you need to make an application to the CTTT. The advantage to doing that is it will take matters out of the hands of these people entirely, but it will also take it out of your hands.
Do you have a strata manager?
Peta,
My apologies, obviously I was a bit hard.
You attended the AGM and are on the EC, so you’re doing the best you can.
It definitely sounds like a “dysfunctional” OC, so I agree with Scotty, CCB and Cobra. Go for a compulsory strata manager.
You have:
1) A deadlocked EC (with 6 members).
2) A failure by the EC to attend to essential repairs and possibly dangerous situations.
3) An EC which thinks it can subsequently veto an OC decision. Although they may argue that they have “allocated” the money for an expert report, just not spent it yet.
If you don’t want to hand over control to a compulsory appointed strata manager you may consider applying for an adjudicators order against the owners corporation to carry out their duties under section 62 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (SSMA) which says;
62 What are the duties of an owners corporation to maintain and repair property?
(1) An owners corporation must properly maintain and keep in a state of good and serviceable repair the common property and any personal property vested in the owners corporation.
If the OC resolved at the AGM to obtain an expert report then the EC cannot over rule this decision. If the $5000 was only a budget allocation then that is not a sufficient resolution with respect of this and the committee does have the power to make this decision.
Getting back to your original question though, Schedule 3, Clause 4 of the SSMA sets out the process to sack one or more EC members. This can be done by special resolution at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM). An EGM must be convened ASAP upon receipt of a written request from at least one quarter of the owners (by unit entitlement).
Good luck.
Thankyou, All, for yr time and suggested ways forward…
Perhaps we might go with the special resolution at an EGM and see how that works. Mediation at CTTT won’t help with the triad. They will say whatever sounds good on the day and then go back to their blocking act the second we walk out the door.
We do have a good Strata Management company and they cld certainly take over, for a while. I’d be happy with that. But one of the the main reasons the triad are convening dodgy meetings and writing rubbish minutes of their dodgy meetings is a concerted effort, on their part, to sack the current SM and put in any other company that they think they can better control.
What a waste of time and energy, eh? We cld all be at the beach, sipping chilled beverages, thinking beautiful thoughts, rather than dealing with this chaos.
I will keep you posted!
There is nothing stopping you from writing your own version of the events of a meeting. My EC tampers with the integrity of the our strata minutes and I have made my own transcript of the events contemporaneously and have had them put in the record. Additionally, if safety is an issue, you can institute your own repairs on your lot and submit the invoice for payment or pay it yourself and get reimbursement – only after you have made several requests to the EC and they have failed. Then you can take the EC to the tribunal if they don’t pay you. It only costs $5.00 to lodge an application if you are a student or a pensioner.
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