Meetings & voting

An AGM is a strata scheme's most important annual event — it's where the committee is elected, the budget and other statutory items are dealt with, and the coming year's direction is set.

Before the meeting

• Confirm the required notice period for your state and send the agenda with enough lead time
• Include all items your legislation requires (election of committee, insurance, any motions notified by owners)
• Attach supporting documents — quotes, reports, proxy forms — so owners can make an informed decision before they arrive
• Check the quorum requirement for your scheme and plan for it

During the meeting

Work through the agenda in order, recording each motion as it's moved and seconded, noting the resolution type (ordinary, special or unanimous) and capturing votes and proxies as they're cast rather than reconstructing them afterward. This is the single change that makes the biggest difference to how painful minutes are afterward.

After the meeting

• Finalise and distribute minutes promptly — timely records matter both for compliance and for owner trust
• Update the committee's access in the portal to reflect any changes from the election
• Turn any resulting actions into tracked items with an owner and a due date

Common mistakes

Two mistakes come up repeatedly: sending notice too close to the meeting date, and not properly recording proxies, which can leave a resolution's validity open to challenge. Check your specific state's requirements — NSW, Victoria, Queensland and other states each set their own notice periods and quorum rules under their respective strata legislation.

Quorum exists to stop a small handful of owners making binding decisions for the whole scheme without reasonable participation.

Why it matters

If a meeting proceeds without quorum, resolutions passed may be invalid or open to challenge later, which can unwind decisions the committee thought were settled — sometimes well after money has already been spent or a contract signed.

How it's generally worked out

Most Australian states calculate quorum based on a proportion of owners (sometimes measured by unit entitlement rather than headcount) present in person or by proxy. Some states provide for a reduced quorum, or a deemed quorum, if the meeting is adjourned for lack of numbers on the first attempt. The exact mechanics differ enough between NSW, Victoria, Queensland and other states that it's worth confirming against your own state's current legislation or your manager's advice rather than relying on general commentary.

Practical steps to protect quorum

• Send notice with enough lead time that owners can arrange to attend or appoint a proxy
• Actively chase proxies from owners who can't attend, particularly for schemes that regularly struggle to reach quorum
• Know your state's fallback process if quorum isn't reached, so you're not improvising on the day

How this shows up in Flex Strata

The meeting tools record attendance and proxies as they're captured, so quorum can be checked against actual numbers at the time rather than estimated. This doesn't replace knowing your state's rule — it just means the numbers you're checking it against are accurate.

When in doubt

If your committee is unsure whether quorum was validly reached at a past meeting, or how it should be calculated for an unusual scheme structure, that's worth a specific question to your strata manager or a lawyer rather than guessing — the consequences of an invalid resolution can be significant.

Proxies let owners who can't attend a meeting still have their vote counted, but they come with formalities that trip committees up more often than most other procedural matters.

The basics

An owner completes a proxy form nominating another person (who may or may not be another owner, depending on your state's rules) to vote on specific or all matters at a nominated meeting. The form generally needs to be received by a set deadline before the meeting to be valid.

Common limits

Most states cap the number of proxies a single person can hold at one meeting, to stop a small number of people controlling a disproportionate share of the vote. Some states also restrict who can act as a proxy (for example, requiring they be an owner or occupier in some circumstances). These limits vary by state, so check your own state's current legislation rather than assuming a number.

Getting proxies right

• Use the correct form for your state and scheme's requirements
• Set and communicate the submission deadline clearly in the meeting notice
• Check received proxies against the state's cap before the meeting, not during it
• Record which proxy voted on which motion, not just that a proxy was received

What goes wrong

The most common failure is discovering during the meeting that a proxy exceeds the legal cap or was received after the deadline, forcing a scramble to work out whether the vote is still valid. Checking proxies as they arrive, rather than on the day, avoids this.

How Flex Strata helps

Meetings tools record proxies against the relevant owner and motion as part of the live meeting record, so the paper trail supporting minutes is accurate without a separate reconciliation step afterward.

Not every strata decision carries the same weight, and legislation reflects that by requiring different levels of owner agreement depending on what's being decided.

Ordinary resolutions

Most routine committee and scheme business — approving standard maintenance, adopting minutes, day-to-day decisions — is passed by ordinary resolution, generally a simple majority of those voting.

Special resolutions

More significant matters — commonly things like certain by-law changes or spending above particular thresholds — typically require a special resolution, which needs a larger majority and can be defeated by a smaller proportion of votes against than would defeat an ordinary resolution. The exact majority and opposition thresholds are set by each state's legislation and can differ.

Unanimous resolutions

The most significant matters — historically including things like adding or removing common property, in some states — require every vote cast to be in favour, with no votes against, though abstentions are usually still allowed. These are naturally harder to pass and are reserved for decisions with the biggest impact on the scheme.

Why getting this right matters

Passing a motion under the wrong resolution type can make it invalid even if the vote count would have satisfied the correct threshold. If a committee is unsure which resolution type a matter needs, that's worth checking against your state's current legislation or asking your strata manager, particularly for by-law changes and anything affecting common property.

How Flex Strata supports this

Meetings tools let you record each motion against its resolution type as it's moved, so the vote result recorded in the minutes lines up with the threshold that actually applied — reducing the risk of a mismatch being spotted only after the fact.

Not every decision fits neatly into an annual cycle, and legislation in every state provides a mechanism for calling a meeting outside the AGM when something genuinely can't wait.

When an EGM is typically needed

• An urgent building issue requiring owner approval for expenditure beyond the committee's authority
• A dispute or compliance matter with a deadline that falls before the next AGM
• A required number of owners requisitioning a meeting on a specific matter, which most states' legislation allows for

Notice and process

An EGM generally still needs to meet the same statutory notice period, quorum and resolution requirements as an AGM — it's simply held outside the annual cycle rather than following a lighter process. Rushing notice because a matter feels urgent is a common way EGM resolutions end up challenged later.

Alternatives to an EGM

For decisions that need to happen faster than even a properly noticed EGM allows, or where calling a full meeting is disproportionate to the decision, a ballot between meetings can often achieve a valid resolution more quickly while still keeping a full voting record — provided the resolution type needed suits a ballot process under your scheme's rules.

Weighing up the options

Before calling an EGM, it's worth asking whether the matter genuinely needs a formal meeting, or whether a ballot or a Committee Hub discussion followed by a decision within the committee's existing spending authority would resolve it faster without unnecessary formality. Reserve EGMs for matters that need owner-level authority and genuinely can't wait for the AGM.

Slow minutes are one of the most common owner complaints about strata committees, and they're also one of the easiest problems to fix with a small process change.

Why timely minutes matter

Minutes are the scheme's formal record of what was decided. The longer they take to go out, the more likely details get fuzzy, disputes arise about what was actually agreed, and owners lose confidence that the committee is on top of things. Some states set specific statutory timeframes for circulating minutes of certain meeting types, so it's worth checking your own state's requirement rather than assuming a general rule applies.

What slows minutes down

Typically it's not the writing that takes time — it's reconstructing what happened from someone's handwritten notes, a recording nobody's transcribed, or fragmented memories days after the meeting. By the time someone sits down to write minutes properly, the meeting is a foggy memory rather than a clear record.

A faster approach

Recording motions, movers, seconders, proxies and vote outcomes live during the meeting — rather than afterward — means the bulk of the minutes exist by the time the meeting closes. What's left is a short review and formatting pass, not a reconstruction exercise. This is the core reason Flex Strata's meeting tools capture the record as it happens rather than as a transcript to write up later.

A reasonable target

Even without a specific statutory deadline, aim to have minutes reviewed and distributed within a week to ten days of the meeting while it's still fresh enough to catch errors, and sooner if any decision requires prompt owner notification.

Not every decision can or should wait for the next scheduled meeting, and calling a full EGM for every time-sensitive matter isn't always proportionate. Ballots fill that gap.

When a ballot suits the decision

Ballots work well for matters that need owner-level input reasonably quickly — accepting a particular contractor's quote where the committee wants owner sign-off, or a decision that arose after the AGM and can't sensibly wait a year. They're not a substitute for matters that legally require a properly convened meeting with quorum and specific notice periods — check what your state's legislation and your scheme's by-laws require before relying on a ballot for something that needs a formal resolution.

How the process works on Flex Strata

• The committee creates the ballot, setting the question and who's eligible to vote
• A secure voting link is sent to eligible owners
• Owners cast their vote directly from the link, without creating a portal account
• Results build in real time, visible to the committee as votes come in
• The full record — who voted, when and how — is retained for the minutes and for any later question about the outcome's validity

What to check before relying on a ballot outcome

Confirm that the matter is actually one your scheme's rules and state legislation allow to be decided this way, rather than requiring a meeting. If in doubt, a short question to your strata manager or a lawyer before running the ballot avoids finding out afterward that the resolution isn't valid.

After the ballot

Record the outcome in the minutes of the next meeting, and turn any resulting action into a tracked item with an owner and due date, the same as any other committee decision.