{"id":19,"date":"2015-03-30T04:20:23","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T04:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/?p=19"},"modified":"2015-10-17T04:21:12","modified_gmt":"2015-10-17T04:21:12","slug":"the-different-body-corporate-committee-roles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/the-different-body-corporate-committee-roles\/","title":{"rendered":"The Different Body Corporate Committee Roles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone (probably) knows that there are a maximum of seven voting committee positions for a committee formed under the\u00a0Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(BCCM Act)<\/strong>.\u00a0 These are the chairperson, the secretary, the treasurer and then four \u2018ordinary\u2019 committee positions.<\/p>\n

The question that sometimes arises is what each of these people are responsible for.<\/p>\n

It is quite interesting (and perhaps that\u2019s just the lawyer in us) in terms of what most committees fall back to as a default position as against what the BCCM Act actually prescribes.<\/p>\n

Those default positions are not necessarily the legislative requirements.<\/p>\n

The first distinction to draw is between executive committee members (chairperson, secretary and treasurer) and ordinary members.\u00a0 One person can hold all three executive roles, but one person cannot hold all ordinary roles.<\/p>\n

Voting at committee level remains one per person \u2013 not one per position (i.e. if one person held all three executive positions, they still only get one vote at committee level \u2013 not three)<\/p>\n

Ordinary members<\/h3>\n

These are \u2018ordinary\u2019 positions in every sense of the word.\u00a0 They have no special rights other than to have a vote at committee level, which counts the same as any other committee member\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n

Their power, in a sense, is in numbers.\u00a0 If there were four ordinary members who voted in concert on every motion, it would not matter how the executive members voted.\u00a0 The outcome would be 4-3 (at a minimum) every time.<\/p>\n

Ordinary members can call committee meetings in their own right provided that there are enough of them to provide a\u00a0quorum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The treasurer<\/h3>\n

We still hear this word and think of pirates, but maybe that\u2019s just harking back to primary school and learning to read.\u00a0 Or perhaps it is because they have started filming the next Pirates of the Caribbean on the Gold Coast and Johnny Depp seems to be everywhere.<\/p>\n

Whatever.<\/p>\n

You could assume that the treasurer would be automatically responsible for the finance role for the body corporate (i.e. the approver of payments, controller of cheques, balancing of books etc).<\/p>\n

The reality is different.<\/p>\n

The treasurer has no real automatic legislative right to be the manager of the body corporate\u2019s finances.\u00a0 In the BCCM Act their position is a title only.<\/p>\n

That means it is up to each body corporate to decide how it is going to manage its finances.\u00a0 Of course, most bodies corporate make finance management largely the role of the engaged strata manager.\u00a0 While good governance dictates that at least one member of the committee would approve each payment, who that is, and the process for the payment approval itself, remains the domain of the committee.<\/p>\n

Despite there being no particular special rights with this role, the treasurer may appoint a proxy for committee meetings only with the approval of the committee.\u00a0 Given the above, we don\u2019t understand the rationale for that, but it is in the BCCM Act!<\/p>\n

The secretary<\/h3>\n

This person would be considered the administrative manager of the body corporate.\u00a0 Before strata managers and resident managers were removed from the right to have voting positions on the committee in the 2003 amendments to the BCCM Act, the secretarial position was usually filled by a representative of the engaged strata manager.<\/p>\n

Practice dictates that is still effectively the case.\u00a0 It would be next to impossible for any committee member to fully understand the rules and regulations that come with the role of secretary.\u00a0 Thank goodness most strata managers do, although we still see some pretty shoddy practice at times.<\/p>\n

Amongst other things, the secretary is the nominal point of contact for the\u00a0service of documents on the body corporate.\u00a0 The formal part of the role also includes:<\/p>\n