Are these explanatory notes required?
Any owner, or person entitled to vote at a general meeting, is able to request that a motion be included in the agenda of the next general meeting of an owners corporation.
The motion, among other things, must include an explanation of up to 300 words. The secretary of the owners corporation must include it in the agenda of the next general meeting.
It is not clear if the explanatory note provided by the owner must also be included in the meeting agenda, although it probably does.
However, the position is quite different where a motion is included in the agenda of a general meeting at the request of a strata committee, secretary or strata managing agent exercising a delegated function.
In those circumstances, there is no requirement for the motion in the agenda for the general meeting to be accompanied by an explanatory note.
So what has changed since the introduction of a Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 that now sees explanatory notes included in general meeting agendas?
The answer is very little apart from the requirement for an owner, or person entitled to vote, who submits a motion to also provide an explanatory note.
This means that in most cases there is no requirement for a meeting agenda to include explanatory notes.
Nevertheless, the inclusion of well-drafted explanatory notes can help provide a clearer understanding of the purpose of motions that are considered at general meetings.
Therefore the practice of including concise, well-written explanatory notes in meeting agendas should be commended.