What is a Quorum for a Body Corporate Meeting?

Summary:

It is the legal number of people that are present at a Body Corporate meeting to make the meeting legally binding. A quorum is required for 3 meetings in particular where this is relevant. The AGM, EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) and an Owners Committee meeting.

At an AGM at least 25% of all owners need to be present to make it legal. For an EGM it is up to the owner on how many are required to be present. Within the Owner’s committee meeting there is no set rule, however typically the Body Corporate likes to have at least 50% of owners present.

Being present can mean you have sent in a proxy or have someone represent you with a proxy if you are unable to attend.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Good day Andrew Murray here from Apartment Specialists. Talking about questions I get asked about Auckland apartments. Apartments that are for sale. And a question that I get asked from time to time is "What is quorum?"

Now it's a word that I couldn't even guess when I first heard it. Now what quorum is, is the legal amount of people that are present to make a body corporate meeting legal. Or an owner's committee meeting legal. So you have three general types of meeting involved with apartments. You have A.G.M. which is an Annual General Meeting. You have an E.G.M. which is an Extraordinary General Meeting and you have an Owners Committee Meeting.

Okay so an Annual General Meeting, obviously by the name, happens once a year. That's when all the owners get together and make a decision. They''ll elect their committee. They'll elect their Chairman, and they'll make a decision on passing of financials and things like that. Now for that meeting to actually take place and actually be legal to represent all the other owners, you need to have at least 25% of all the owners present. And that's what's called a quorum.

Now then you'll have an E.G.M. And that's an Extraordinary General Meeting. Now that's when a meeting happens when something needs to be discussed, it's very important about the building and it can't wait the next, sort of 12 months - or actually it's more like 15 months - for the next A.G.M. Okay and that has to be 25%.

Then you have an Owners Committee Meeting. Now in an Owners Committee Meeting, there isn't actually set rule that at the A.G.M. they decide what a quorum is. So at the A.G.M. and Owners Committee Meeting's, so the member that get elected with a Chatirman and they decide how many member's that's going to be. Whether it's eight, nine, six, ten, things like that. And then they'll decide what a quorum means so how many members have to be present from that Owners Committee to be able to make decisions on behalf of the other apartment owners.

Now generally it's 50%, so they'll say there will have to be 50% of the people on that Owners Committee present to be able to make a decision. And they can legally represent all the other owners. But they could say only two people have to be present. But I don't really see that as being fair because then you can obviously have people very influential and other parties, their feelings may not be presented properly.

So in a recap, a quorum is what a legal number of people that have to be present to make a decision to represent other owners in an apartment complex. Whether that be an A.G.M. an E.G.M. or an Owners Committee. Now there's one small thing I will add. That the owners don't have to be physically present, they can put in proxies, that means they can have another representative attend those meetings and vote on their behalf. Which also counts towards those quorum numbers.

Anyway I hope that helps you understand what that word quorum actually is and what it means in the apartment number industry. And anyway, thank you and I'll talk to you guys soon.

Cheers.