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Hi,
We recently voted at the AGM on limits on spending for the EC, with the requirement for quotes to be obtained within these limits eg: Clarified that MA has expenditure limit to $1000, jobs between $1000 and $2000 two quotes required, jobs between $2000 and $3000 three quotes required with MA providing two quotes and the committee one additional quote. Jobs costing over $3000 require three quotes and general meeting to accept quote. However, the minutes compiled by MA only reflected the MA restriction 0f $1000 and EC restriction of $3000 – which, in my view does not reflect the spirit of ensuring transparent wise spending. The MA, when asked to amend the minutes said this can only be done at the next AGM 12 months away. What recourse do I have to ensure that what we voted on is acted upon NOW and not forgotten “as not in minutes”. Any advice would be greatly appreciated to maintain an accountable process – which I thought was what meetings and minutes were for – call me naive.
and topic should be *Strata Manager
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Simone – from what I understand your O/C resolved to limit the expenditure of its Strata Manager to $1K, that quotations be obtained in varying numbers up to $3K, and the everything else comes to a General Meeting.
What’s been minuted omits the requirement for quotations, and the best means to rectify that before the next General Meeting is for your Executive Committee (E/C) to meet to resolve in the manner intended, to minute that, and to instruct your Strata Manager accordingly.
Presumably your E/C is on-side with that approach, and as it would be clarifying as opposed to overruling a resolution of the O/C, it shouldn’t present a problem.
Thanks Whale – will try to get the EC to be alarmed as I am. Although I think it may take another unusual big spend outside this restriction (which is why we put this restriction on in the first place….! ) to get them to be more alert.
Thanks for the feedback, and without knowing the size of your Plan it maybe worth noting that if it comprises more than 100 lots then the Regulation (2010) requires a minimum of two (2) quotations for items of proposed expenditure exceeding $30K irrespective of whatever the O/C or E/C may decide to resolve and minute.
Good luck with alerting your E/C.
$30K for a large (100+ lots) scheme = $300 per lot (or less).
One wonders why the benefit of a regulated limit was bestowed only on large schemes, rather than being regulated as $300 per lot for all schemes.
One also wonders why “legal advice” (much more likely to blow out than tradesmen’s charges) was exempted from the general limit up to $1,000 per lot.
Roo – the limit on the costs of legal services is the lower of $1,000 / lot or $12,500, so that limit is actually less than 50% of the general limit for large schemes.
It’s also worth noting that a compulsory motion on the agenda for all Annual General Meetings is one asking whether or not the Owners Corporation (O/C) wishes to have any particular matter/s or types of matter/s determined only by it as opposed to by its Executive Committee, and I’m guessing that was what simone’s O/C intended to invoke by placing restrictions on expenditure matters.
Going back to the minutes as drafted by the Strata Manager, they are the minutes of the General Meeting which the owners attended and voted on. While it is difficult with minutes of annual meetings, because a year passes until there can be a vote on whether they reflect the proceedings of the meeting, that doesn’t mean that the draft minutes can’t be amended.
The Strata Manager drafts them, and then as best practice the draft minutes should be circulated to at least the Secretary of the EC to confirm whether they are accurate. That is what we do.
I don’t see why it should be solely up to the SM to determine what should be in the minutes, of course you can’t have endless arguments about them but if the minutes are incorrect to the extent simone42 says they are, then that is a concern.
I think I have mentioned before that some years ago a former strata manager of ours got the minutes incorrect in relation to the levies for the coming year – it was clear they had cut and pasted them from another scheme’s minutes, which meant that everyone’s levies were wrong. They told us that we had to call an EGM to change those minutes so we could change the levies to what they should have been in the first place, which is what we did, and that strata manager had the nerve to charge us for that meeting. They aren’t our strata manager any more.
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