How can owners fill vacant strata committee and officer roles after the AGM?

"Executive committee", "executive officers" and "executive" were terms dropped in the 2015 Act – we now talk of the "committee", the "strata committee", and "officers" (chairperson, secretary and treasurer).

The Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 is pretty clear in prescribing the need for a committee to be appointed/elected (s 29 and s 30(4)(a)), usually at the AGM, and that the officer roles must correspondingly be filled (s 41(1)).

The committee is vacated at the end of the next general meeting at which a new strata committee is elected (s 35(1)(d).

The number of committee members for the following term is set at the general meeting at which a new committee is elected, before the election is held. The number can be determined after nominations are received.

If that number is equal to or higher than the number of nominees, those nominees are automatically elected to the committee. Nominations only need to be accepted by the nominee.

At the next strata committee meeting held after their election, the officers must be appointed, and a committee member may hold more than one of those offices (s41(1).

If any committee position or office is vacant, an appointed strata managing agent may exercise the duties of the officers, as long as those duties are explicitly conferred in the strata management agency agreement.

An agent exercising officer duties is not a member of the committee and has no vote at a strata committee meeting.

Additionally, there are no casting votes in strata committee meetings or decisions (the same case as general meetings) – a tied vote is an unsuccessful motion.

It's not unheard of for an owners corporation to specify a number higher than the number of nominees. However, I have only seen that when it is expected that the positions will be filled (see below).

It is certainly unusual in my experience to have such a high number of unfilled positions by design, and it can seriously impact the operation of the committee and the owners corporation.

Even if seven is "the usual number" in your owners corporation, I would advise against such a committee makeup in the future.

The main concern is that for any strata committee meeting (and, technically, any committee decision), the quorum is one half of the number of committee positions resolved (rounded up if necessary), not the number of appointed committee members (once again, the strata manager doesn't count towards the quorum).

In your case, that makes the quorum 4, and no decision is valid without all 4 members being present and voting. Unlike general meetings, a quorum cannot be declared after a period of waiting, and proxies are not available (acting committee members can be appointed through a more convoluted process – see s 35 of the Act).

In relation to your specific questions around filling the committee and officer positions, the committee can, at a strata committee meeting, appoint an eligible person to fill a committee vacancy (s 35(2)) and officers can also be appointed from the pool of committee members at a strata committee meeting (s 41(1) and s 35(2)).

Eligible and ineligible persons are defined in ss 31-32.