Are postal votes at an AGM Legal?

I have received a PM with a query that i had not come across before, so can anyone else throw some light on this subject? the question was: We have a problem within our community. The President has been in post for two years now. At first, he was fine, after a while he became more of a dictator. When people have disagreed with him, he has tried to blacken their names, and now our community is fragmented. He likes this, as some people have washed their hands of the AGM and therefore the voting. At the moment, we have someone else who has put up for President, but it will be a very close call. We have now found out that he is going for a postal vote at the AGM, rather than proxy votes. Do you know if this is legal? We read somewhere that voting at an AGM should not be done by correspondence, and that if a property owner cannot attend, then he simply gives someone he trusts his proxy vote. All we want is to have a fair committee, and a say in the running of the community. The current presidente has refused to talk about anything on the community to the people who have disagreed with him. time for a change we think?

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Have a word with Karensun. She was posting about her OH, President of their community sending questionaires out for owners to say yeah or nay to questions, maybe it wasn't same thing.

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Postal votes are not legal: Attendance to the general meeting can be made in person or by a solicitor or a lawyer. You can also grant power of attorney to someone else, just by signing an authorisation.

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If a correctly made out and signed PROXY vote is sent in by post, Maria, this is legal isn't it?

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We send our proxy by email to another owner who tells our president he has been given our proxy & it's accepted by her, legal or not. It obviously isn't signed either, having been sent by email. We just put "we give our proxy vote for meeting dated 00 / 00 / 0000  to Mr. X "etc etc.

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Surely if it is not signed then it cannot be legal, what proof is there that it is actually from the person who sent it?

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Provision 15.1 Horizontal Property Act: Attendance to Meeting of Owners need to in person or by legal or voluntary representation. Voluntary representation needs to be proved by a writing signed by the owner. 

It means  you need to have someone as your representative there who will be your voice  in the meeting.

Pre-issued votes are not legal.

You can of course instruct your represntative on your wishes regarding the  matters enlisted in the Agenda but cannot vote in advance by mail, email or whatever.

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Maria, I'm a bit concerned now.

We sent out a fully detailed voting sheet to all owners ( this was approved by our administrator ). The reason we did this was because we had a lot of trouble in previous years with people voting the way THEY wanted when they had proxy forms, NOT the way the owners of the proxy votes wanted.

All the forms are returned to the administrator, filled in and signed by the owner, with thier apartment number etc.

Is this not allowed ??

Our community took advice from our administrator and the Community Lawyer and they said it was perfectly ok and legal to do it this way.

I would appreciate your advice as we do not want to break Spanish Law.

Many thanks.

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Karensun:

In that case, it could be considered those owners are represented by the Administrator ( which is prefectly valid and possible) and HE ( the administrator) is voting o their behalf at the General Meeting. 

They have pre-expressed their opinions in written and the administrator is voting for them at the Meeting. 

Do you make public and count  those proxy votes at the Meeting, before the presence of the owners?

Best,

Maria

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Thank you for your prompt reply Maria.

Although we have not counted the voting forms actually at the AGM ( mainly because there are so many ) a sheet detailing the results is present at the meeting AND all the voting sheets are also at the AGM so that anyone can see them.

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Maria,
Having seen the practice of a proxy list in other communities being used, (whilst house hunting) trawled EOS, read your answers on this thread , and looked to put a proposal to give a fairer opinion of neighbours, with their proxy vote( in some cases,  used by the holder for there own requirements.) Posted the information from this thread on our urbanisation thread, the following has been posted by our Vice-President in reply.

Ken

"See your point but I think that María (the lawyer) is sidestepping the issue in her answer. It’s a matter of semantics, but the essential part is that whoever gets the proxy with added information about the wishes of the absent voter is ->not bound<- by the proxy vote and it’s stipulations. The proxy holder is still legally free to vote whatever they want so the law prohibiting pre-votes hold."
Following this statement, is it possible to clarify my/our position on this matter.
In anticipation, gracias

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What is your specific question?

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If an agreed  proxy list was submiitted (to the administrator) is the proxy holder still legally free to vote whatever they want ?
    Ken

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If the owner has given a specific written mandate to the proxy holder ( who may be the administrator) to vote in a pre-determined way on his/her behalf, the proxy  holder needs to obey the mandate and vote consequently, according to that.

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Hi Maria,

There is no provision in the law which penalizes voting in a different way. 
Don't you mean that the vote is otherwise just not valid if the proxy giver protests afterwards or does the administrator have the obligation to check all proxies on the provisions and compare these with the actual votes at the meeting. 
Like I said earlier it's most of all a matter of semantics,but I'm wondering as prevoting is forbidden.

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If a voting form is sent out with complete detail of what you are actually voting for......and that form is returned signed by the recipient then that vote will stand for that person. Of course, these VOTES will be counted alongside anyone at the actual meeting.
If each person has the facility to vote the way THEY want ( and not according to how thier 'proxy' voter feels ) there would be no reason to object after the meeting.
It is unfair that because one is unable to attend a meeting, one should have to leave the future of THIER community in someone elses hands, especially as by using a VOTING paper, everyone can have thier own say.

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