Timeframe for receipt of AGM/EGM minutes

Our community recently held an EGM but few people were able to attend. It took the President/Administrator seven weeks to send the minutes our. Does the HPA or any supporting rules state an acceptable time to deliver the minutes to the Community?

Thanks in advance.

Rio

They should be sent within 10 days..I presume that means working days, that is sometimes difficult to adhere to if multiple translations are required though.

We just got ours out in the 10 day timeframe recently with 3 different translations.

Barry

Thanks for the prompt response Barry. Can you point me to where it says that in writing? Our President is mighty keen to quote from the HPA when it suits and we need to do the same.

Thanks

Rio

This is lifted directly form HPL

Regards

Barry

Section 19

1. The resolutions of the general assembly shall be recorded in a book of minutes stamped and validated by the Land Registrar in accordance with the applicable regulations.

2. The minutes of each meeting of the general assembly shall express, at least, the following circumstances:

a) the date and place of the meeting;

b) the person having summoned the meeting and, where appropriate, the unit owners who promoted it;

c) whether it was ordinary or extraordinary and whether it was held on first or on second call;

d) the roster of those present and their respective offices, as well as unit owners represented;

e) the agenda for the meeting;

f) the resolutions adopted, with indication, where relevant for the validity of the resolution, of the names of unit owners who voted in favour and against, as well as the assessment quotas corresponding to each unit owner.

3. The president and the secretary shall sign the minutes at the end of the meeting or within the following ten days. Once the minutes are signed, the resolutions shall be in force, unless otherwise provided by law.
The minutes shall be sent to the unit owners, pursuant to the procedure established in section 9.

Any defects or errors contained in the minutes may be rectified provided that they are signed by the president and the secretary and that the date and place of the meeting are correctly expressed, as well as the names of those unit owners present and those represented, the resolutions adopted, the votes in favour and against, and the assessment quotas thereby represented. Corrections shall be made prior to the following meeting of the general assembly and submitted to it for ratification.

4. The secretary shall keep custody of the general assembly’s minutes book and he shall conserve the summons for meetings, notifications, proxy forms and other relevant documents during a five year period.

 Just to be precise, what the HPL says is that the Minutes must be drawn up and signed by the President within 10 days of the General Meeting but it does not require that it be sent to the owners within that timeframe.  There is no time limit for Minutes to be sent to the owners.  

In many communities they wait at least 30 days to make sure that owners who were unable to attend have the chance to get their after votes in the Minutes.  This is not a requirement but just a practice.  If the Minutes are sent before, the Secretary can make a note of aftervotes after they are issued.

I have even seen some communitites that will not send out the Minutes until they have been read out and "approved" at the next EGM or AGM.  This also is not a requirement but just a practice.

I suggest that if you want the Minutes to be sent out right after they are issued, that is just after the 10 days, then you pass a resolution in that direction at the next meeting or, even better, incorporate this requirement into the statutes but this probably requires a reinforced majority to be approved.

 What are these after votes mentioned by lobin.

My confusion lies in section 19 subsection 3:

"The minutes shall be sent to the unit owners, pursuant to the procedure established in section 9."

Section 9 doesn't appear to detail what the procedure is, or have I missed something?

It makes no sense that community owners have no idea what has been agreed that may affect them, for instance increase in Community fees. Mind you, it is Spain!

Rio

 The after votes are regulated in Article 17, section 1, next to the last paragraph.  This is the possibility of owners who have not attended a meeting to vote after the fact.

In case it helps you can download an English translation of the Horizontal Property Act on the site here.  Best to right click that link and save the PDF to your PC.

Yes, I already have the English version thanks, but I can't see where it answers my question.

Rio

Hi all

There is no provision in HPL for 'after votes' or by another term late vote. See below the extraction from section 17 HPL refering to the rules regarding the result of voting which also are very relevant to the need to despatch minutes.

:To the effects established in the preceding paragraphs of this rule, the votes of duly summoned unit owners absent from the meeting shall be computed as favourable if, having been informed of the resolution adopted by those present in conformity with the procedure established in section 9, they did not state their dissent to the person acting as community secretary within thirty natural days, by any means ensuring record of delivery.

The above section says clearly that all absent votes are counted as yes to each proposal unless they object to the community secretary within 30 days of the resolution having been voted upon.

If the minutes have not been distributed then the community secretary is not abiding by the rule as stated and denying the owner who did not attend an opportunity to object.

RIONES

For the purpose of your debate with a beligerant President / Administrator point him in the direction of that clause combined with the requirement to have minutes signed within 10 days.

Regards

Barry

Surely this section clearly says that the 30 days for "after votes" is from when they are advised of the voting for or against agenda items at the meeting. Therefore this timing must be from when we receive the minutes of the meeting otherwise we have no knowledge of what votes were taken or the results.

In our community it regularly takes months before the minutes are distributed. This year the administrators did email to say that the Fees & Budget had been approved but did not mention anything else that was on the agenda.

Of course the time for any objection to the minutes is 30 days after you have recieved the minutes.

If there is no objection then everyone who did not vote or was not represented by proxy is deemed to be a yes vote. Objections have to be registered through court and there needs to be a valid reason to object, simply not being at the meeting is not enough reason since if the meeting was properly conviened you would have had the opportunity to attend or send a proxy.

Most Communities translate minutes to several languages which takes time and most minutes are sent to all corners of the world, however, there is NO obligation for a Community to do this and the minutes could be sent in Spanish to a Spanish address only.........................then there would be a possibility you could have them signed within 10 days and recieved soon after..................................trouble is you may have less knowledge of what was happening in that case!!

We live in a community which is eighty percent British but when we objected to the AGM minutes (in English) about the omission of a whole important section of the meeting,  an agenda item in fact,   which had been discussed in detail at the meeting but not referred to in any way in the minutes,  we were told that we had to put this objection in  Spanish,  because that was the law.     We were asked if we wanted to pay for the objection to be translated into Spanish even though the administrator was appointed on the basis that he spoke English and would do translations.

The implications of this are important because it means that almost no one can object to the minutes now because they are not able to speak or write Spanish.  This restriction also affects the Swedish,  Italian,  French and German owners here. 

Are you able to comment on whether this law exists and that the requirement is valid.  Also whether  the law,  if it exists,  can be set aside by general agreement,  at the next AGM.  One would have hoped that the new committee would have wanted the minutes to be as representative and as true and accurate a record as possible,  of what was said in the meeting,  instead of trying to stifle further discussion of an issue which provoked an irate reaction.

scalpel

I do know that the Spanish minutes are the ones that count in Law. Any translations would need to be checked to make sure they say the same thing and this takes a lot of time and effort for someone.

I don't know if there is a Law that you have to complain/object in Spanish.............but if there is a Law then it doesn't matter what you do or say at your meeting..........you CANNOT over rule Spanish Law.

If you have a genuine grievence and 'they' want it in Spanish either ask a Spanish friend for help or use Google translate........it's not perfect but it would allow you to state your case.

Of course you should not rely on on line translations for the whole minutes!

What I was suggesting is that you could use Google for the complaint..................especially as the alternative is NOT make a complaint.

Any objection to the minutes must be made within 30 days of recieving the minutes....................it is too late to object at the next AGM because ( as previously stated ) all persons not at or represented ( by proxy ) at the meeting will be deemed to be FOR the motion unless they have lodged and objection within the stated time.

 Karen this your last post, translated to Spanish and back to English.

By all means you do not have to trust ignition the line translations for the whole minutes! What suggested is that you could use Google for the complaint especially .................. because the alternative is not to make a complaint. Any objection to the minutes is due to make within 30 days receive the minutes .................... that are too slow to be against in the following AGM because (according to the indicated thing previously) they will judge to all the people in or not represented (by being able) in the meeting to be FOR the movement unless they have lodged and objection within the indicated time

reply to Karenson:

Nice to have a comment but I am not really interested in any reply which states 'I don't really know the answer to your question'.  Either it is the law that all objections to minutes must  be in Spanish or it isn't.   If it isn't,   then we can all complain in the language we understand if things are not correct,  and it means that the Spanish Administrator has an ulterior motive for saying this. 

Having submitted my objections within the specified time (ie, one month from receipt)  I intend to bring the matter up at the next AGM which is imminent,  under 'approval of previous minutes'.   What has been omitted is important and I am going to request that it is included as an amendment.    I would like to be able to say that the reason they have rejected the objection is specious,  (ie., there is no such law)    but I need to be sure of my position,   which is that no such law exists (to have objections submitted in Spanish).  If I can  be assured that no such law exists,  then I shall move that the minutes are not accepted (if they continue to ignore my request for inclusion). 

The question of translation into Spanish by some external source is irrelevant:  Nobody wants to have  this amount of trouble to put their points forward;  they simply won't be bothered.   

This is a black and white situation.

Scalpel

Sorry Scalpel..........was only trying to help. Try sending Maria de Castro a PM and she will tell you the Spanish Law.

johnzx..............thank you for that, however I still believe it is better to try than to do nothing and by doing nothing accept something which you are opposed to.