How Strata Voting Works: Resolutions, Proxies and the AGM

It is a common pattern: an owner goes to one AGM, finds it dull, and never goes back. Years later their levies jump sharply in a single year, and when they go looking for who decided that, expecting to find a committee acting unilaterally, they instead find the budget was tabled at the AGM, put as an ordinary resolution, and passed by a handful of people in the room, some of them holding proxies for lots that were not otherwise represented. The whole item can take a few minutes and appear in the minutes as a single line.

Nothing improper needs to have happened for this to be true. That is the part owners find hardest to accept. The building can follow the rules exactly, and the rules still allow a small, organised group to make the decisions for everyone else. Showing up is not a formality; it is the entire mechanism.

We have written a lot about where body corporate money goes and why levies differ between lots. This is about the step in between: how a budget becomes a binding obligation on you, and where your leverage sits in that process.

The Resolution Ladder

Every decision an owners corporation or body corporate makes sits at one of a few thresholds. Get the threshold wrong and the decision can be invalid, which is one reason committees are cautious about them. Understanding the ladder tells you immediately how hard a given change will be to make or to stop.

Ordinary resolution. A simple majority of votes cast. This covers the great bulk of decisions, including the ones with the biggest financial consequences:

• Adopting the annual budget and setting the levies
• Electing the committee
• Approving most routine and even substantial expenditure
• Appointing or renewing the strata manager in many schemes
• In some states, striking a special levy

That last group is worth reading twice. The single largest annual financial decision in your building usually requires nothing more than a bare majority of whoever turned up.

Special resolution. Typically around 75 per cent, though the way it is counted varies by state, and some jurisdictions define it as no more than 25 per cent opposing rather than 75 per cent in favour. This is the threshold for structural changes:

• Making, changing or repealing by-laws or rules
• Alterations or additions to common property
• Granting exclusive use rights over part of the common property
• In Victoria, making a rule banning short stay accommodation in the scheme

Unanimous or near unanimous. Reserved for decisions that reach into an owner's property rights. Reallocating unit entitlements generally sits here or close to it, which is a large part of why entitlement schedules are so hard to fix, as we set out in our guide to why your levy differs from your neighbour's. Terminating a scheme used to sit here everywhere, though most states have now moved to a supermajority, covered in when 75 per cent of owners can sell your apartment.

The practical takeaway is uncomfortable but useful: the things that cost you money are usually easy to pass, and the things that would protect you from them are usually hard.

Quorum, and the Part That Surprises People

A meeting needs a quorum to make binding decisions. The general rule in New South Wales and Queensland is that at least 25 per cent of those eligible to vote must be present in person or by proxy, or those present must hold at least 25 per cent of total unit entitlements. Victoria sets the bar higher at 50 per cent of total votes or lot entitlements.

Now the part nobody mentions.

If a quorum is not reached within 30 minutes, the chairperson generally has two options. The meeting can be adjourned for at least seven days, and when it reconvenes it can proceed whether or not a quorum is present the second time. Alternatively, in some circumstances the chairperson may simply declare those present to constitute a quorum and carry on.

Victoria takes a softer line. A meeting without a quorum can still proceed, but decisions are treated as interim resolutions which can be challenged and may need confirmation at a later meeting.

The consequence in most of the country is that a determined group cannot be blocked by apathy. If enough owners stay home, the meeting reconvenes a week later and a handful of people pass the budget. Boycotting an AGM you disagree with is close to the least effective thing you can do.

Proxies: Where Control Actually Concentrates

A proxy lets you appoint someone to vote on your behalf. Used properly, it is a genuinely good thing. It lets an interstate investor participate and stops a building being paralysed when owners travel.

The problem is concentration. If one person accumulates enough proxies, they control outcomes regardless of what the room thinks. That practice has a name, proxy farming, and it has historically been used by developers with unsold stock, by caretakers protecting a lucrative agreement, and occasionally by a single owner running a building as a personal fiefdom.

States have responded differently, and the differences are stark.

South Australia is not a typographical error. Under the Strata Titles Act 1988 and the Community Titles Act 1996 there is no limit on how many proxies a single person may hold. Other restrictions apply, notably that a proxy appointment through an attorney lasts a maximum of 12 months and that committee meeting proxies must generally be held by a unit holder in residential schemes, but the numerical concentration itself is not restricted. If you own in South Australia, this is the single most important sentence in this article.

The power of attorney workaround

Even where caps exist, they are not watertight. Proxy limits apply to proxies. They do not necessarily apply to powers of attorney, which are a different legal instrument. Queensland has already seen a case where powers of attorney were permitted to exceed the legislative limit that applies to proxies by that route, and commentators in New South Wales have raised the same concern about proxy farming being replaced by power of attorney farming.

If you are asked to sign something that gives another owner authority over your vote, read carefully which instrument it is. The cap that you are relying on may not apply to the document in front of you.

How to spot it

• Someone circulates proxy forms door to door ahead of a meeting, particularly forms already filled in with a nominee
• The caretaker, building manager or developer is collecting them
• The proxy form is open ended rather than directed to specific motions
• A small number of attendees carry a disproportionate share of the vote at the meeting
• The strata manager is nominated as proxy on motions concerning their own contract

The last one is worth its own sentence. If a manager holds proxies on a motion to renew their own agreement, that is a conflict, however common it may be. Our guide on changing your strata manager covers what to do if that is the situation in your building.

Who Is Allowed to Vote at All

Two rules catch owners out.

Arrears. In most states, an owner who is behind on levies is unfinancial and loses the right to vote on ordinary resolutions until the debt is cleared. The timing is brutal: the moment you are least able to pay is the moment you lose your say over the budget that sets what you pay.

Victoria has broken from this. Under the reforms now before Parliament, an owner on an approved hardship payment plan will not be classified as unfinancial and keeps their vote. It is a deliberate departure from the rest of the country and, in our view, the single best idea in the package. We cover the reform in detail in our guide to Victoria's 2026 owners corporation changes, and the options available to owners in arrears today in what to do when you cannot pay your fees.

Co-owners and companies. Jointly owned lots usually carry one vote between them, exercised by whichever co-owner is nominated or votes first. A lot held in a company or trust needs a properly documented representative. Turning up without that paperwork is the most common reason a vote gets ruled out on the day.

Virtual and Hybrid Meetings

Remote participation moved from emergency measure to permanent feature across most of the country. Electronic voting, pre-meeting ballots, and meetings held by video are now standard rather than exceptional, and Victoria's reform package explicitly extends ballot timeframes and supports hybrid and online meetings.

What has not changed is the paperwork. Most schemes still require the owners corporation to have resolved to permit electronic voting, and notice must state how remote participation will work. If your building has not formally adopted it, a video meeting can be procedurally vulnerable even when everyone consented in practice. It is a five minute agenda item worth doing properly once.

For owners, the practical upside is that "I could not get there" has stopped being a reason not to vote in most buildings. Ask your manager what remote options exist before you write off the meeting.

The Pre-AGM Checklist

Notice of an AGM typically arrives around 14 to 21 days before the meeting, depending on the state, along with the agenda, the proposed budget and the financial statements. Most owners glance at the levy figure and file it. Here is what to actually read.

1. The proposed budget, line by line. Compare each line against last year. Insurance, management fees and utilities are where increases hide. Our guide to reading a body corporate statement explains the format, and where the money goes covers what each line should reasonably cost.

2. The capital works or maintenance fund forecast. Is the fund on track against the plan, or has the balance been quietly consumed by operating shortfalls? A fund going backwards is a special levy in waiting. See how much your capital works fund should hold.

3. The insurance sum insured and the valuation date. An out of date valuation means underinsurance, which nobody discovers until a claim. If the valuation is more than a few years old, that is a motion worth raising.

4. Any motion concerning the manager's or caretaker's contract. Renewals, extensions and top ups are the highest value decisions most buildings make and they routinely pass without discussion. Caretaking and letting agreements explains why an extension can commit your building for decades.

5. Any special levy, and the resolution type attached to it. Check the threshold being used. If a large levy is being put as an ordinary resolution, understand that a simple majority of attendees will decide it.

Two more practical points. You can submit your own motion, but there is a deadline, usually a set number of days before the notice is issued, so the time to act is well before the agenda arrives. And if you cannot attend, give a directed proxy, naming the person and specifying how they must vote on each motion, rather than an open one. A directed proxy participates. An open proxy hands over control.

Key Takeaways

• The budget that sets your levies is usually an ordinary resolution, decided by a simple majority of those who turn up.
• Special resolutions of around 75 per cent protect by-laws and common property, so the decisions that cost you money are easier to pass than the ones that protect you.
• A failed quorum does not stop a meeting. In most states it adjourns for seven days and then proceeds regardless, so staying home does not block anything.
• Proxy caps vary enormously: 5 per cent in New South Wales, 10 per cent in Queensland, caps retained in Victoria, and no cap at all in South Australia.
• Proxy limits may not apply to powers of attorney, which has already been used to exceed the cap in Queensland.
• Arrears cost you your vote in most states, though Victoria is moving to preserve it for owners on a hardship payment plan.
• Send a directed proxy, not an open one, and read the budget, the fund forecast, the sum insured, the manager's contract and any special levy before the meeting.

Compare body corporate fees across Australia at BodyCorporateFees.com.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Voting thresholds, quorum requirements and proxy limits differ between states and territories and between scheme types within a state. Always check your scheme's registered by-laws or rules and the current legislation in your jurisdiction before relying on a threshold.