Question: At what point in an AGM can an owner speak to a motion? At the time the motion is read? Or after motions are resolved?
Answer: Yes, no or abstain are the only words required.
The only time owners can formally speak to a motion is when asked to record their vote when voting from the floor. Yes, no or abstain are the only words required.
While this may not be a satisfactory answer for many people, it is what the legislation allows.
It also makes some practical sense. The purpose of having a vote is to record decisions, not opinions. The information owners require to vote on a matter should be wholly contained within the motion. From reading it, owners should be able to reasonably determine whether they are in favour of the proposal and vote accordingly. If they can’t do that, the motion may be out of order. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and they are encouraged to express it by voting.
In practice, the situation is often more nuanced and good chairs will consider the merits of owners’ rights to question and discuss a motion and give space to that where appropriate. Chairs should be conscious of the need for healthy debate and seek to promote it. Simply allowing some room for people to be heard can have great benefits for scheme harmony. On the other hand, any input from owners needs to be reasonable and productive. Having people express their opinions succinctly and professionally can be a positive. Having a lengthy, quarrelsome debate that does nothing to change the outcome probably isn’t.
Getting this balance right is going to require subjective judgment on the part of the chair, and that means sometimes mistakes are going to be made. It’s not unreasonable to default to the legislation and say that no debate is required, but an overly authoritarian approach rarely resolves matters positively over the long term. Each situation can be considered individually, but if people want to make informed, polite comments on a motion, they should generally be welcomed to do so.
This post appears in Strata News #756.
William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924
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