This article discusses how majority owners and special resolution outcomes strata NSW are determined, explaining how unit entitlements, not headcount, decide whether a special resolution is valid under NSW strata legislation.
Question: Was a motion validly passed at the AGM when one owner with 37% entitlement voted against the motion, but the other owners present voted in favour?
Six of the eight owners attended our AGM. A motion that the chair described as an “extraordinary vote” was put to the meeting. One owner, who holds 37% of the unit entitlements, voted against the motion. The other five owners present voted in favour, and the committee decided to proceed on the basis that the motion had passed.
Was this decision valid under the strata legislation, given the voting percentages involved? If the decision was not valid, can either of the two absent owners refuse to be bound by the financial implications of the motion or refuse to contribute to the associated costs?
Answer: The motion should be defeated.
I am going to assume that when you talk about an extraordinary vote, you mean a special resolution vote. A special resolution is resolved by calculating units of entitlement, in which case, the number of lots is irrelevant. The motion requires 25.1% of unit of entitlements eligible to vote (being in attendance in person or via proxy) to defeat the motion. As you mentioned, an owner who voted against the motion has 37% of the units of entitlement. The motion should therefore be defeated.
If the minutes indicate the motion was resolved, the owner who voted against the motion and any other owners should requisition a general meeting to have the resolution corrected.
Owners with at least 25% of unit of entitlements can request a General Meeting. The requisition should include the motion(s) you wish to have resolved, including an explanation for each motion. The owners corporation has 14 days to call this meeting.
If the owners corporation fails to call the meeting after receiving this requisition and all required information, the owners affected should apply to NCAT to order the owners corporation to hold the meeting and or correct the minutes and invalidate the resolution.
Nathan Clarke Hunter Strata Management E: nathanclarke@hunterstrata.net.au P: 02 4934 2022
This post appears in the March 2026 edition of The NSW Strata Magazine.
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