This NSW article is about using electronic voting to fast track committee decisions on improvements to common property.
Jump directly to the QUESTION you are after:
- QUESTION: Our AGM will be held by electronic voting thereby negating any opportunity to debate motions on the Agenda. Is this considered fair and reasonable under current NSW Legislation?
- QUESTION: Can our Chairperson instruct our difficult secretary to call for an electronic vote on a number of special resolutions as a way to fast track committee decisions?
GET NOTIFIED WHEN WE PUBLISH NEW Q&As, NEWS AND ARTICLES TO THE SITE
Question: Our AGM will be held by electronic voting thereby negating any opportunity to debate motions on the Agenda. Is this considered fair and reasonable under current NSW Legislation?
The Strata Manager and Strata Committee have orchestrated the AGM to be held by electronic voting thereby negating any opportunity to debate motions on the Agenda. Is this considered fair and reasonable under current NSW Legislation?
Answer: In the current climate it would likely be considered fair and reasonable to hold meetings via such means.
Since 5th June 2020 the strata legislation introduced the emergency COVID-19 measures which permit all strata committees and owners corporations to hold meetings via electronic and other means to assist with social gathering restrictions and so forth. Therefore, in the current climate it would likely be considered fair and reasonable to hold meetings via such means.
Leanne Habib
Premium Strata
P: 02 9281 6440
E: [email protected]
You can connect with Leanne & Premium Strata on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn.
This post appears in Strata News #388.
Question: Can our Chairperson instruct our difficult secretary to call for an electronic vote on a number of special resolutions as a way to fast track committee decisions?
Our scheme has a difficult Secretary on the committee.
Some other committee members would like to convene an electronic EGM to vote on suggested common property external additions.
The secretary has always been against the additions and has suggested that we have an EGM in March or April next year as a tactic to delay the process.
Can our Chairperson instruct the secretary to call for an electronic vote on a number of special resolutions as a way to fast track committee decisions?
Answer: Organising an electronic-only EGM is very easy depending on various conditions.
Karina Heinz:
STRATA SCHEMES MANAGEMENT ACT 2015
- The secretary of the owners corporation may convene a meeting of the strata committee at any time.
- The secretary of the owners corporation, or any other member of the strata committee, must convene a meeting of the committee if requested to do so by at least one-third of the members of the committee.
- The meeting must be held–
- in the case of a large strata scheme, not later than 28 days after the request is made, or
- in the case of any other strata scheme, not later than 14 days after the request is made.
It may be easier to skip straight to a requisition (qualified request) served on the Secretary/Strata manager to call the meeting.
- The secretary or a strata committee of an owners corporation may convene a general meeting (that is not an annual general meeting) of the owners corporation at any time.
- The secretary of the owners corporation, or another officer if the secretary is absent, must convene a general meeting (that is not an annual general meeting) of the owners corporation as soon as practicable, and not later than 14 days after, receiving a qualified request.
- A meeting may be convened on a qualified request even if the first annual general meeting has not been held.
- A request is a “qualified request” for the purposes of this section if it is made by one or more owners of a lot or lots in the strata scheme having a total unit entitlement of at least one-quarter of the aggregate unit entitlements.
First, you have to ensure the scheme has the authority to vote electronically.
STRATA SCHEMES MANAGEMENT REGULATION 2016
14 Other means of voting—owners corporation and strata committee
- An owners corporation or strata committee may, by resolution, adopt any of the following means of voting on a matter to be determined by the corporation or committee:
- voting by means of teleconference, video-conferencing, email or other electronic means while participating in a meeting from a remote location,
- voting by means of email or other electronic means before the meeting at which the matter (not being an election) is to be determined by the corporation or committee (pre-meeting electronic voting).
- Without limiting subclause (1) (b), the other electronic means of voting may include requiring voters to access a voting website and to vote in accordance with directions contained on that website.
- If a matter may be determined partly by pre-meeting electronic voting, the notice of the meeting must include a statement that the relevant motion may be amended by a further motion given at the meeting after the pre-meeting electronic voting takes place and that consequently the pre-meeting vote may have no effect.
- A motion that is to be determined wholly by pre-meeting electronic voting may not be amended at the meeting for which the pre-meeting electronic voting is conducted.
- A motion that is to be determined partly by pre-meeting electronic voting must not be amended at the meeting for which the pre-meeting electronic voting is conducted if the effect of the amendment is to change the subject matter of the original motion.
- If a motion that is to be determined wholly or partly by pre-meeting electronic voting is amended at the meeting for which the pre-meeting electronic voting is conducted, the minutes of the meeting distributed to owners must be accompanied by notice of the change and a statement setting out the power to make a qualified request for a further meeting under section 19 of the Act.
Paul Chevrot: Organising an electronic-only EGM is very easy depending on various conditions:
- Has a motion to allow electronic voting already been approved?
- The size of the building
- The general profile of ownership (inv vs owner occupier, used to online or not…)
- The availability of the strata roll including email addresses
The main issue I can foresee here is that the secretary normally has the key role of facilitating this process. It will depend how formal/procedural the scheme/secretary are but there are ways around it of course.
Karina Heinz
P: 02 9389 9599
E: [email protected]
W: https://www.prostrata.com.au/
Paul Chevrot
Stratabox
T: 0405 024 262
E: [email protected]
This post appears in Strata News #307.
If you have a question about using electronic voting to fast track committee decisions or something to add to the article, leave a comment below.
Read next:
- NSW: Is it legal to record a strata committee meeting?
- NSW: 5 Tips to Run a Successful Strata Meeting
- NSW: How To Remove a Disruptive Lot Owner from the Committee
Visit Strata Committee Concerns OR NSW Strata Legislation pages.
Looking for strata information concerning your state? For state-specific strata information, try here.
After a free PDF of this article? Log into your existing LookUpStrata Account to download the printable file. Not a member? Simple – join for free on our Registration page.
We have five members on the owners committee. An email by our hired Strata Manager is sent to all members to decide on approvals for maintenance on property or common area (insurance not included). Every time, only one or two people vote by return email and these two members CC to the Strata Manager and all other members so everyone can see their vote & comments. When the Strata Manager then approves or disapproves a job we have no idea if the other three members have voted individually or as a group or what they have voted and when asked, the Strata Manager refuses to disclose the information. If some members vote no, should they need to give a reasonable reply as to why they have voted no? Should the Strata Manager be upfront on who has has actually voted and allow the other members to see all replies? If another member calls the Strata Manager and votes should this information be recorded in writing for other members to see? Also, I believe one of the members is voting from himself & for another person (who can’t be bothered to vote), so effectively he is putting in two votes that aren’t disclosed to us. Can you please advise what is the correct way forward here?
I read with interest the article on electronic voting at AGM,s
Our recent AGM was conducted in this manner however prior to 5/6/2020. Our plan had previously approved Video and phone Meetings however the AGM was conducted ENTIRELY by pre vote and no attempt was made to facilitate the approved format nor were the owners consulted despite numerous calls by owners
further the SC entered a motion to reinstate themselves for a further 12 months and although this motion was ruled out of order after the meeting.the requirement to hold SC elections was not implemented.
The strata manager and the SC excused the decision not to hold elections on Covid 19
My question then HAS “The Sc failed to facilitated an electronic meeting in accordance with owners prior approval which would have enabled SC elections and what recourse do the owners have ? “
You cannot hold an election via electronic vote. Once COVID restrictions are gone or you can hold the meeting by teleconference or proxy votes you should be able to consider a motion to elect a strata committee.
Hi Nikki,
We recently held an EGM in Victoria and had it via Zoom because of the lockdown.
One of my hopes was that the owners that never bother to attend the meetings such as AGM’s would now be able to attend and vote. Nope, same people still couldn’t be bothered, even when they didn’t need to even leave their lounge room.
Or fill in a proxy form and email it.
Live and learn.
With regards to electronic voting, if the members of strata committee is unfinancial, are they still allowed to vote?
Also if the secretary is unfinancial, can anyone in the strata committee take the responsibility as secretary until time as such that the secretary becomes financial?
Hi Terence
The following response has been provided by Karina Heinz, Progressive Strata Services:
Schedule 2 of the Act:
9 Decisions at meetings
(1) Voting at meetings A motion put to a meeting is to be decided according to a majority of the number of the votes cast for and against the motion by the members present (other than any tenant member) or in the manner set out in subclause (2). If there is only one member of the strata committee, the decision of the strata committee is the decision of that member.
(2) Voting in writing A motion proposed to be put to a meeting is taken to have been validly passed even if the meeting was not held if–
(a) notice was given of the meeting in accordance with this Schedule, and
(b) a copy of the motion was given to each member of the strata committee, and
(c) the motion was approved in writing by a majority of the members of the committee (other than the tenant member).
(3) Decisions to have no effect if opposed by more than specified owners A decision of a strata committee has no force or effect if, before the decision is made, notice is given to the secretary of the owners corporation by one or more owners, the sum of whose unit entitlements exceeds one-third of the aggregate unit entitlement, that the making of the decision is opposed by those owners.
(4) Voting rights cannot be exercised if contributions not paid A member of the strata committee is not entitled to vote on any motion put or proposed to be put to the strata committee if the member was, or was nominated as a member by a member who was, an unfinancial owner of a lot in the strata scheme at the date notice of the meeting was given and the amounts owed by the unfinancial owner were not paid before the meeting.
(5) Tenant member not entitled to vote A tenant member of a strata committee is not entitled to vote on any motion put or proposed to be put to a strata committee.
Note: this does not preclude a Secretary acting as Secretary, it only affects their voting right.
Great discussion!
Certainly a bit of complexity around the ins and outs of electronic voting. But our observations are that committees and lot owners are really embracing this as it allows them to participate more easily in the process and resolve important decisions more quickly.
The content of the question mentioned ‘a number of special resolutions…’ I was under the impression that special resolutions are to be decided by the Lot Owners at an EGM or AGM and not by the Strata Committee. Or has that changed in certain Australian States and Territories?
Hi CJ
This response from Karina Heinz:
There is no provision for special resolutions of a committee in NSW. I don’t know about other states.
That said – you can vote electronically for an EGM that has the special resolution on them. What are the decisions about? Let’s work out if it is a committee decision or does require a general meeting.