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The AGM is where the budget is struck, the strata committee is elected and the year's spending is authorised. It is also the meeting most buildings run late, under-attended and under-recorded — which is how a owners corporation ends up with decisions it cannot evidence and owners who feel it was decided without them. Almost all of the fix happens before the day.
New South Wales requires at least 14 days' written notice of an AGM to every owner, and sets a quorum of 25 per cent — with the useful feature that if quorum is not reached the meeting can be adjourned briefly and then proceed, with its decisions valid. The 2025 reforms also brought in mandatory training for strata committee members, so what happens at the AGM now includes making sure the people elected know what they have taken on.
Governed by the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, administered by NSW Fair Trading.
Fourteen days of notice, plus the motion cut-off before that, plus time to prepare the budget. Six weeks is a comfortable run-up; two is not.
Sending the notice early is not always a kindness — it can close the window owners had to submit something. Ask for motions first, then issue.
In Quarter: Build the motion from the quotes and the budget, send the notice to every owner off the ownership register on the statutory clock, and record the vote as it is cast — a decision carries its majority automatically and emails the outcome to whoever raised it.
Owners approve the levies more readily when they can see what the 10-year plan says they are for.
In Quarter: Upload the plan you already have and Quarter reads it into a costed schedule of items, lifecycles and due years. From there it projects the fund thirty years out and tells you the annual contribution that actually funds it.
Twenty-five per cent is achievable, and the adjournment rule is a safety net rather than a plan.
Nominations, the committee, then the office-holders. Record who was elected to what.
In Quarter: Committee roles and who holds them are recorded against the building, so notices, voting rights and permissions follow the position rather than one person's inbox.
Promptly, to every owner, and filed. This is the document that answers next year's questions.
In Quarter: Minutes are drafted from the meeting itself rather than written from memory a fortnight later, then reviewed, published to owners and filed in the document register — and every action item in them becomes a tracked task with an owner and a date.
It shortens the window owners had, and it is a common complaint to Fair Trading.
With the standard-form capital works plan now in use, a levy figure that is not tied to the plan is conspicuous.
The count matters, particularly on resolutions that are later questioned.
The legal requirement is a floor. A meeting run well does four things a compliant one might not: it authorises the year's money, it fills the committee, it settles the questions that would otherwise fill your inbox, and it leaves a record that answers them again next year.
The work is the notice, the agenda, the quorum, the votes and the minutes. Quarter does all five, and the committee does the deciding.
The agenda and papers sent to every owner with the notice period the legislation actually requires, from the register rather than from somebody's contact list.
Open decisions, unresolved maintenance, the budget and the motions owners submitted — assembled rather than remembered.
Proxies and electronic voting, so quorum stops depending on who happens to be free on a Tuesday evening.
Each resolution, who moved it, the count, and the outcome — captured as it happens.
Not written from memory a fortnight later. Reviewed, published to owners, and filed where the next committee will find them.
General information about New South Wales, not legal or financial advice for your building. Legislation is amended and grant programmes open and close — check the current position with NSW Fair Trading or the administering body before you act on anything here.
Tell us about your building in New South Wales and we will show you exactly how Quarter would run it.
