WA: How should strata council votes be conducted by email?

Question: If the CoO decision making process is conducted via email, how should the vote be conducted?

When the council of owners (CoO) are trying to come to a consensus on an issue, it is my understanding that consensus should be achieved via a majority vote by the CoO members.

How should this vote be conducted if communication between the CoO members is via email:

• How many days should members be given to vote?
• Can the chairperson put a time limit on when votes must be submitted?
• If a member never submits their vote to the chairperson, has the member abstained from voting? If the CoO comprises four members and two vote yes and two don’t respond, is that a majority yes vote?

Answer: The council should come together and agree on a process and timeframe for making urgent and non-urgent decisions with time frames for each.

Yes, for the council of owners, a vote is achieved by a simple majority count. Schedule 8 of the Governance By-Laws advises:

8. Meetings of council

1. At meetings of the council, all matters must be determined by a simple majority vote.
2. The council may —
   
   1. meet together for the conduct of business and adjourn and otherwise regulate its meetings as it thinks fit, but the council must meet when any member of the council gives to the other members not less than 7 days’ notice of a meeting proposed by the member specifying in the notice the reason for calling the meeting

You will see from the excerpt that the council has the ability to regulate its meeting as it thinks fit. Best practice, however, would suggest that this vote is in writing. The voting system, whether it is electronic or by other means, must enable votes to be cast in a manner designed to protect the integrity of the voting system. Therefore, I do suggest the council come together and agree on a process and timeframe for making urgent and non-urgent decisions with time frames for each. If a vote is not cast, this is considered an abstain and yes, if there are four council of owners and only two vote, you can proceed with the vote of the two. You may, however, want to formally advise all council of owners that a non-vote will be counted as an abstain.

This post appears in Strata News #651.

Jamie Horner
Empire Estate Agents
E: JHorner@empireestateagents.com
P: (08) 9262 0400