Question about voting at AGM

Our community has just had its AGM. During the various items and votes which were taken we were informed by our Administrator that only those present at the meeting had a valid vote. All those people not present who had left valid proxy votes were excluded from the final count. Our Administrator informed the meeting that proxy votes were only taken into account if there was a draw at the meeting.  Surely this can not be correct. Perhaps some members of Eye on Spain or maybe Maria could advise. Thanks.

See section 15 of HPA

http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/horizontal-laws.pdf

Hello;

I have seen this happen on more than one occasion in formal meetings. It is generally a situation were the community & it's president have let the administrator take control of their community.The relationship is master & servant in reverse.The situation normally happens when the administrator for their own or other's interest is seeking a false result of a agenda point for voting. 

This action is in breach of the rules as the member quite rightly quotes in her post with the correct section of the HPL.

There exists in this instance a case to have the meeting or the agenda point voted on in question declared & void if these proxy votes when counted would have changed the outcome of a voted agenda point.

I hope this helps.

F.Parkinson .Administradore

thanks for your replies. i will tackle the administrator on it when i return to spain. any more replies would also be appreciated. thanks.

I also have a question concerning AGM's and EGM's perhaps Maria might be able to answer.  We recently had an AGM and were told that an EGM had been held and another apartment block adopted.  However, at the EGM the only persons present, as I understand it, were the Developer, owners from the block that wished to be adopted and the Administrator.  The President of the Community wasn't there.  My question is:  Was this a legal EGM meeting if the President wasn't there to act on behalf of the majority of the community.  Therefore, were the decision/s i.e. apartment block adopted legal?  Would be very grateful for any advice on above.

Hello ;

Firstly you need to confirm if the minutes of the previous EGM where adopted by the community in the subsequent AGM. If so the majority of owners have accepted the adoption .It is a legality to adopt the the minutes of the last formal meeting at the next.

This is not the end of the road but you would be up against a majority of owners if they did accept the minutes to be adopted.

When did you first recieve the minutes of the disputed EGM ? You have up to 1 year from the EGM meeting to challenge the minutes ( 3months from proven reciept).The post you made would suggest you found out about the EGM meeting at the AGM.

An EGM can be chaired by the promoter owner of the meeting in the absence of the president or vice president which seems to be the case in this matter.It suggests the administrator was in contact with the promoter owner to be there.Clearly he had a vested interest in the meeting to increase his fees by more members joining.

As stated above this is not the end of the road as to change the ownership of the community requires unanimity of all the quotas and clearly this was not achieved.Hence if within your time limits a action to impugnar ( set aside) the minutes should be sucessful & this is relatively inexpensive & short in timing.In addition there may also be community statutes in place which also need to be adhered to.

I hope this helps.

F.Parkinson . Administradore

This message was last edited by jacksonsadmin on 21/10/2012.

Surely, if  all (or most of) the current members were not invited to the EGM then it's decisions are void?

 The developer would use his quotas on the second call to vote the matter through.The difficulty in this case is that at the subsequent AGM with a larger number of members '  is if they voted to adopt the minutes of the EGM as necessary by law ( see my mail below) then the community has accepted the ligitamacy of the EGM ( hence my question below ).

At this point it would be difficult to persuade the court to anull the EGM in terms of lack of  knowledge of the meeting.

The developer would have planned the EGM with the administrator as both could gain by the result.

The community members at the subsequent AGM should have voted against accepting the EGM minutes in order to commence the action to have them annulled.

In this case my view is still that the best chance of a annulment is on the grounds of the action to increase the community size & quotas being illegal due lack of unanimity of the quotas at the time of adoption in the EGM.This should set aside any arguments of service or adoption of the minutes at the AGM.

I hope this helps.

F.Parkinson. Administradore