Dear Strata Solve Agony Aunt
At our recent AGM, a very stupid owner voted ‘no’ to a really important motion. Because everyone else voted ‘yes’ and they voted ‘no’, the motion was lost and now we are stuck because we can’t proceed. What can we do? Can the ‘no’ owner be made to explain themselves?
Regards, Florence
Dear Florence
Isn’t democracy grand? You can vote yes, no, you can abstain, you can opt to not vote at all: the choices are all there for owners in strata. And so while you can absolutely ask the owner to explain themselves – I’d refrain from calling them stupid when you do – that won’t necessarily fix things. Your options are either to call another general meeting to ‘revote’, if you think they’ll vote yes this time, or challenge the dissenting vote in the Commissioner’s Office. Which will be very time consuming and costly. Your query is reminder to all strata schemes that if you want the best chance of something succeeding, you should be doing our persuasion and lobbying well beforehand. Remember, Auntie knows best on that score.
Do you have a question for Strata Solve’s Agony Aunt? You can ask it here. While Auntie deeply cares about your strata queries, she regrets she cannot give legal advice or answer every single question, as she is a busy woman.