Question:
I'm an owner in a sectional title scheme of which the developer owns half of the units.

How many votes does he or his representative have in a special general meeting or trustees' meeting?

Answer:
At owner meetings in sectional title schemes there are two ways of voting.

The first is by 'show of hands' in which the owner or owners of a section have one vote for each section owned. If this type of voting is used the developer or his representative would hold half of the votes.

The second is by 'poll' procedure whereby each owner’s vote is valued according to the participation quota allocated to his/her section or sections unless a special scheme rule has been made allocating other values to the sections in the scheme, in which case the poll will be based on those values. If this type of voting is used then the developer’s vote would be worth the aggregate total of each of his sections' participation quotas or the aggregate of any other values in terms of a special scheme rule made allocating other voting values to the sections.

The developer may, however, hold powers of attorney or a number of open proxies from other owners in the scheme allowing him to vote on their behalf. If this is the case he will have an increased influence over the outcome of the voting at owner meetings.

As for trustee meetings, the developer will only have one vote. Each trustee has one vote at trustee meetings and the poll procedure is not used in this context.

Article by: Jennifer Clements - www.paddocks.co.za