The AGM and voting

The secretary prepares the agenda, and an AGM agenda must carry set items and motions. Calling and running meetings, and taking the minutes, can all be handed to a strata manager. Fair Trading groups the required items in five parts:

The agent has its own item at every AGM: it must disclose any third-party commissions or training services received over the previous 12 months, those likely in the next 12 months with their estimated value, and its connections with the scheme’s suppliers and original owner. The disclosures must be recorded in the minutes.

The notice must include these documents:

• the minutes of the last general meeting, if an owner hasn’t already had them
• the key financial statements
• any auditor’s report
• details of each insurance policy the owners corporation holds
• the 10-year capital works fund plan
• the strata or building manager’s contract, if a manager is to be appointed at the meeting

An owner who asks is also entitled to the full financial statements of each fund at least 2 days before the meeting. Within 14 days after the meeting, the owners corporation must give each owner a copy of the minutes; in a large strata scheme, it gives a copy to an owner who asks for one within those 14 days.

Some resolutions count one vote per lot; others count by unit entitlement, the share of the scheme each lot holds.

A poll, which any voter may demand either before a vote or immediately after it, switches a general resolution from one vote per lot to a count by unit entitlement. An owner with unpaid levies at the time of the meeting can’t vote, unless the motion needs everyone’s approval.

A proxy attends and votes in an owner’s place, and the choice of proxy is wide: a tenant or a strata committee member would qualify, as would almost anyone else. In a scheme of 20 lots or fewer, the person nominated can’t already hold a proxy for someone else; in larger schemes, they can’t already hold proxies for more than 5% of the lots. In schemes of more than 100 lots (not counting parking or utility lots), the form must reach the secretary at least 24 hours before the meeting; elsewhere, by the time it starts. The lot count is the Act’s definition of a large strata scheme, in section 6 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, read in an archived copy of 12 December 2025.

One rule is written with managers in mind: building managers, strata agents and property managers may not use a proxy to benefit themselves, for example by voting to lengthen their own appointment. A proxy has no effect if the owner turns up and votes in person, and it can’t be passed on to someone else.

Pre-meeting electronic voting is available only once the owners have passed a resolution approving it, and it can’t be used to elect the strata committee. If a motion is amended at the meeting, earlier pre-meeting votes on it are cancelled. When votes are cast electronically, it falls to the secretary or the strata managing agent to take reasonable steps, clear and accessible instructions among them, so that everyone entitled can take part.

Owners holding at least 25% of the scheme’s total unit entitlements can call a general meeting by writing to the secretary, and it must then be held within 14 days. Notice of a general meeting must reach owners at least seven days beforehand. Appointing or renewing a strata managing agent is one of the decisions reserved for the owners corporation; a strata committee can’t make it.