Proposed Strata & Community Title Legislation Amendment - Quorum

In late 2022 the South Australian Attorney General's Department called for feedback on the proposed changes to the Strata Titles Act 1988 and Community Titles Act 1996.

Executive Committee Members of the peak industry body, Strata Community Australia met in order to formulate the position for the industry bodies' response and our Director Michael Haines who sits upon this Committee was among those attending in order to ensure that our valued clients and their needs are given a voice.

You can find the Government page explaining the proposed changes here

The highlight of the proposed change is the removal of adjourned meetings!

As it currently stands, A Strata Corporation must achieve a quorum (being 50% of unit holders who must be financial) and a Community Corporation (half of all lot owners who can attend and vote, less any fractions and plus 1) within 30 minutes of the scheduled commencement of the meeting. Under the current legislation should the meeting not achieve a quorum, the meeting is adjourned for 7-14 days.

The proposed change allows that if a quorum is not present after 30 minutes has elapsed from the time appointed for a general meeting of the corporation, the persons entitled to vote who are present at the meeting are taken to constitute a quorum for the purposes of that meeting....

Most of the meetings at which a quorum has not been achieved for this writer has been that the corporation has been just (often agonisingly) short of achieving the quorum, however multiple owners and the body corporate manager have given up their time (often evenings) in order to attend the meeting.

In these instances the owners present have generally run through the meeting agenda with the manager. The owners have been able to give their opinions and reach a consensus among themselves but not cast a vote. Moving forward from here the owners then generally give their proxy to the body corporate manager who then holds a meeting in a weeks' time to pass what the owners had discussed at the first meeting.

Adjourned or reconvened meetings have been an annoyance to this writer that have stood in the way of unit owners achieving the progress they wish for their property as it has been extraordinarily rare for there to be more unit owners at a second meeting than there were at the first meeting, the reality being that the majority of adjourned meetings are held by the manager at their desk with proxies.

The frustration for all who have been involved in adjournments is that the outcome from the first calling of the general meeting rarely changes, meaning that the decision has just been delayed by a week or two.

This change will save owners and body corporate managers time and while it will decrease the meeting fee revenue of body corporate managers we at Strata Management SA enthusiastically support the change which will allow us to be more efficient in assisting our clients to achieve the results that they want for their property.

We eagerly await this change coming into effect and applaud the South Australian Government for taking steps to review the legislation which impacts a growing number within our state.