By law 25 per cent of owners must attend in order to have the required meeting each year. If someone really can’t be there, they even have the option of assigning their proxy to a neighbour or to the Board’s chairperson.

Condominium annual meetings are vital because that’s when the new Board is elected for the coming year, and you can’t run a condominium without a Board. As well, the AGM must decide how many members will constitute the Board, which can have up to seven members, but could have fewer. A secondary consideration is that the Board’s quorum (minimum attendance) depends on the number of directors. For example, the quorum for a Board of seven is four, while the quorum for a Board of six is three. If you have six strong volunteers at the AGM and one ‘maybe-I’ll-attend-maybe-I-won’t’ volunteer, I’d recommend leaving him/her off and create a Board of six members, so that any three can hold a meeting and get things done.

The AGM is also when owners usually receive their audited financial statements for the year that recently ended, and can question outgoing directors on spending, reserve-fund savings and on any project that has been undertaken. Often the past year’s chair, legally the President of the corporation, will give a verbal report on the year’s activities. She/he will also be open to questions from homeowners. If there’s been grumbling among owners on any issue, this is the occasion to bring it forward and have a frank discussion. Those attending the annual meeting might even give guidance to the incoming Board.

In fact, with advance notice to all owners, the AGM can pass resolutions that are binding on the Board for the coming year. In my own building, for example, we give notice that the AGM will consider a resolution to ban dogs, and this is usually carried unanimously. This prohibits the Board from allowing any dog to live in the building, and shows applicants that it’s not just the Directors who are saying “no dogs”. Some day we’ll accomplish amendment of our bylaws to make that ban permanent, but meanwhile the AGM resolution is the perfect tool to accomplish the same thing.

We might close this look at annual general meetings by noting what they do not do. The condominium AGM does not choose the Board’s table officers for the year. Once the Board is elected, it meets and assigns the corporation’s President/Chair, the Vice-Chair, the Treasurer, Secretary and other positions such as Newsletter, Social or whatever.

As well, the AGM cannot set the budget for the coming year, or dictate the level of condo fees. These issues are too complex to resolve in an hour with dozens of people in attendance.

Attend the AGM to support your Board volunteers and to elect (or re-elect) the new Board. Not many owners need to participate at the Board level. But the annual meeting is only one hour out of 8,760 hours in a year. Do your best to be there.   CL

Gerald Rotering is a condominium-specialist Realtor
with Realty Executives, Chinook City, is President of his own building’s condominium corporation, and is a professional member of the Canadian Condominium Institute.

Extensive further information about condominiums can be found on his web site: http://www.CondosInCalgary.com.