If an AGM motion was submitted before the end of the financial year (31 July), can it be amended (without change of substance) after 31 July but before the AGM Meeting notice and voting papers are issued?
A motion that has been submitted by a lot owner prior to the EOFY can be amended up until the agenda is called as long as the amendment does not change the overall intent or meaning of the motion.
A motion that has been submitted by a lot owner prior to the EOFY can be amended up until the agenda is called as long as the amendment does not change the overall intent or meaning of the motion.
This was discussed in Island Close [2016] QBCCMCmr 267 between paragraphs 36-43 and in Central Plaza Apartments Port Douglas [2020] QBCCMCmr 433 where the adjudicator relevantly provided:
[84] The applicant makes an issue of the two ‘amended’ motions, and that the committee failed to list the new versions in the agenda for the AGM. He says the he was told by the committee they could not do so, effectively because the financial year had ended, closing his opportunity to submit motions for the meeting. Certainly, an owner must submit before the end of the financial year, but there is nothing in the legislation preventing a submitter later making amendments and a committee receiving them.
…
[88] There will be practical reasons why proposers of motions cannot be permitted to make multiple amendments, for example, the agenda material may already have been distributed. One might also think of situations where owners take perverse advantage of such a situation, making amendment after amendment, frustrating the integrity of the meeting process. Like many things in this confusing labyrinth of legislation dealing with bodies corporate, it is circumstance dependent.
[89] In this case, the applicant was entitled to make amendments. Whether the committee was required to include the changes in the AGM agenda depends on the circumstances of the case. I am satisfied it is of little consequence. The original motions are not fundamentally different to their amended versions and lot owners can choose whether to support them, or not. If I am wrong I see it is a minor irregularity that is unlikely to misrepresent the applicant’s positon, or mislead voters, but of course I cannot predict such an outcome.
This post appears in Strata News #596.
Todd Garsden
Mahoneys
E: tgarsden@mahoneys.com.au
P: 07 3007 3753
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