What Changes Have Been Made to General Meetings? - Jamesons | Strata Managers Sydney

What Changes Have Been Made to General Meetings?

6 April 2017

In our video series Michael Vumbaca, General Manager at Jamesons Strata discusses the changes that have been made to the general meetings.

There are several key changes to your annual and extraordinary general meetings.

  1. If you want to be on the strata committee, which is voted on at the Annual General Meeting, you now need to be financial at the time of the meeting. This is a very slight but important new change in the legislation that involves strata committee members and people who want to be involved in committees over the next 12 months.
  2. A quorum is the number of people that need to be at a meeting, present and financial, before a meeting can commence. The new legislation states that if a quorum is not achieved after 30 minutes, those persons present and entitled to vote at the meeting, can constitute a quorum and can commence the meeting as if a quorum was present. This is a positive change in the industry because often strata meetings needed to be adjourned and held again seven days later, which incurred delays and additional costs for owners corporations.
  3. If your building comprises of 50% or more tenants, you’ll now be required to hold a tenant meeting before the Annual General Meeting. This meeting is purely for allowing tenants the opportunity to nominate a tenant representative to the strata committee when elected at the AGM.
  4. It’s also a really important to note the change to the number of proxies that people can hold to deal with an issue known as proxy farming. Proxy farming is where one person or a small number of people go around collecting proxies so that they can sway a particular vote on a matter in their favour. Now, the new legislation states that if a building has 20 lots or less, a single person can only hold 1 additional proxy. If a building has more than 20 lots, a single person can hold a maximum of 5% of the total proxies allowed for that meeting.

At Jamesons, we believe the changes around meetings, particularly around quorums and proxies, are excellent changes. They provide a much stronger framework for owners corporations, as:

  • It makes for more productive meetings and you don’t have to worry about adjourned meetings.
  • It takes away the issue of proxy farming which was a huge issue in our industry.

It means that matters will be voted on according to the will of those people who are present at the meeting.
