Those meetings weren’t attractive at the best of times, but the added risk of contracting Covid-19 and the complication of complying with measures designed to slow the spread of the virus makes things even less appealing.
Help is at hand.
Under new amendments to strata and community regulations that came into effect on 21 July 2021:
- Notice of meetings may be given by email to any email address specified by the recipient for the service of documents;
- voting may be carried out by teleconference, video-conferencing, email or other electronic means while participating in a meeting from a remote location
- voting may be carried out by means of email or other electronic means before the meeting at which the matter is to be determined (“pre-meeting electronic voting”). This option does not apply to elections;
- instruments and documents may be signed by the relevant people specified instead of being affixed with the seal of an owners corporation or community association.
If the additional voting options are to be used by an owners corporation or community association, the secretary or managing agent must take reasonable steps to ensure that each owner can participate in and vote at the meeting.
Although strata schemes had the option under the relevant legislation to adopt remote voting procedures, they needed to pass resolutions to do so. The new amendments mean the options are available to all, regardless of whether a resolution has been passed.
The amendments will be automatically repealed on 20 January 2022, at which time the extra options will cease to apply unless the government chooses to extend them further. If a strata scheme wishes to continue to use remote voting after 20 January 2022, now would be a good time to pass a resolution to that effect.
