This article discussing the concept of “owner apathy” in strata communities has been supplied by Frank Higginson, Hynes Legal.
Three things to consider about your body corporate:
- ‘Owner apathy’ may simply reflect other priorities
- People’s lives are busy, and their attention is finite
- Rallying support for a vote will take effort and charm
Owner apathy in strata
It was Benjamin Franklin who said the two certainties of life are death and taxes. In the strata industry we’ve always added one more: apathy.
Those of us inside the industry often talk about owner apathy. We find it extraordinary that general meetings will be adjourned where there might only be 10% of people (or even less!) who choose to participate in the decision-making over what can be a very valuable asset.
I’ve had a bit of a revelation. (It just shows that you can continue to learn each day). I think it’s not so much about apathy (and perhaps it never was), but priorities.
Competing priorities
For some people, the body corporate issues that they are dealing with are the most important thing in the world. And clearly those people are the ones who put up the motions to be voted on at meetings and engage with others about them.
But for everyone else, there are multiple other competing priorities on a day-to-day basis.
Your family, your kids, your job, your grandkids; your parents, your mortgage, the cost of living. It might even be the Middle East, the Ukraine or the US election that is concerning and distracting you. Relative to those things, the email that arrives every year from your body corporate manager with 15 motions is meaningless. And people choose not to vote because they just could not be bothered to get their heads around one more thing, on top of everything else they have to deal with.
For me, I don’t think there is as much apathy in bodies corporates as I did previously – it’s just that people have other issues dominating their attention which means they’re simply not interested in what’s going on in their scheme. Others can look after that (and they do).
Actions speak louder than words
From an owner’s perspective, if you want to motivate people to vote, you need to engage with them. But you must also recognise that a lot of people simply won’t and don’t care about the issue that is important to you – and you’re not going to be able to distract them from the other things going on in their lives to make them care enough to vote yes to your particular motion.
The other little caveat that I always put on this is that the Commissioner’s Office doesn’t take a very positive view of people challenging decisions made at a general meeting after the event when they haven’t chosen to vote themselves. It’s a pretty hard sell to the Commissioner’s Office: to be able to explain why you’re challenging something you didn’t care about enough at the time to cast a vote on.
So, bear that in mind – people’s lives are busy, and your priorities may not be their priorities.
Frank Higginson
E: [email protected]
P: 07 3193 0500
W: Hynes Legal
This post appears in Strata News #719.
This article has been republished with permission from the author and first appeared on the Hynes Legal website.
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