The Annual General Meeting and why its so important.

In this fifth episode of our communal property essentials series I am going to give an introduction on What is an Annual General Meeting, where this meeting should be, what is Quorum and why is it important, how your meeting should be recorded.

In this Communal Property Essentials Series, I give you an introduction on the core subjects surrounding being on your properties management committee.   The Annual General Meeting is such an important topic as there are so many ways you can accidentally invalidate your meeting and the committee even when you think you are doing things for the right reasons. 

This video is to give you a general introduction to the AGM and is not a comprehensive step by step instruction on how to organise it.

This is such an important topic I run regular online live training events on how to organise your AGM and if you have a copy of my book you will see a very large chunk of my book is all about the AGM.

So, if you are planning your next AGM, I would strongly suggest once you have watched this video attend one of my next free AGM live training online events, or pick up a copy of my book The Ultimate Committee Handbook.

Now, if you want 100% assurance that your AGM follows all the rules and requirements, I do offer a ‘Done For You AGM service,  which basically my team organises your AGM for you and either myself of one of my experienced team members physically attends your meeting to help guide you through every stage and provide a certificate showing all of the required steps were taken.

This Done For You AGM service does not break the bank either, these packages are available from just €297 which is not a bad investment to make sure your AGM, committee and communal fund are all within the requirements of the regulations. If you want to know more about this, I will put a link to this in the video description.

So now I have got all that out the way, lets go through the essential components of an AGM.

What is the Annual General Meeting (AGM)

Every year there should be a meeting for your unit owners to get together and discuss the management, maintenance and administration of your Apartment Building or Resort.

At this meeting the financials for the last year should be presented and your unit owners will elect the management committee for the next year.  If you have not already watched my video on the management committee and its role, you can find this on CyprusCommunalGuide.com under the communal property essentials video series. 

Your AGM is also the place where you would give any additional presentations on things like Maintenance reports, management company reports and anything else that would be of interest to the unit owners of your communal property.

When and Where to hold your Apartment Buildings Annual General Meeting?

The name ‘Annual General Meeting’ gives a clue that this should be held once per year.  The exact date is up you, but I usually suggest you have this close to the end of your financial year.  That way any decisions on the budget can be put into effect shortly after the meeting.

The AGM does not need to be held at your building, in fact unless your building has only a few owners I don’t like on-site meetings as they give the wrong impression on the importance of the meeting and add additional difficulties like restrictions on presentations, internet streaming options, numbers that can attend and so on.

I generally recommend looking for a formal meeting place such as a hotel conference room or an events room at a bar/restaurant.  Somewhere where you can hold a formal meeting in comfort with all the facilities available to give your presentations professionally.  If you use a Many of these you can negotiate a low cost rate or even FREE room if you pick a quiet day and they know they will get good bar sales out of it.

Also this location should be where the majority of the unit owners can attend easily.  There is no restriction in the regulations that require the AGM to be held in Cyprus.  So if most of your buildings owners are in the UK for example, then rather than expecting 100 people to fly to Cyprus for the meeting which many will not or cannot do.  Why not hold the meeting in the UK?

What is Quorum at the AGM

You need to have 50% of the eligible owners in attendance at your meeting for it to go ahead.  This is important as if you proceed without quorum then your meeting and any votes/elections that took place during that meeting can be invalidated.

If you struggle with attendance there is allowances in the law, but you need to make sure you follow the exact requirements of the regulations.

Organising Your Management Committee Elections

As I covered in one of the earlier videos in this series, day to day decisions are made by a small group of individuals who are representatives of the property owners. 

The committee is made up of 5 individuals, who are in charge of the day to day decisions of your building or resort.

On a committee you usually have the president, a treasurer, a secretary and up to 2 general committee members.

All positions on the management committee must go up for election at each AGM.  No committee members position automatically rolls over, they must be elected or re-elected at each meeting even if no one else wants to join the committee. 

Which is crazy as I don’t understand why unit owners would not want to have a say in how their property investments are managed.

Presentation of Developments Financial Accounts

The AGM is also where you will present the summary reports for the last year, discuss any differences between budget estimates and actual costs, talk about any problems with bad debt and discuss the budget for the next 12 months.

If you have a small development you may be able to print and hand out these reports, but if you are a larger development you will likely find that a small PowerPoint or Keynote  presentation will help.

Its really important to have full transparency with your financial records, so make sure your Accounts presentation is clear and comprehensive.  You don’t need to read out every fact and figure, but you should present the most important key facts, and then have a more detailed report available to be distributed or included in the minutes.

Recording the Meeting

The most important step of an AGM is not getting quorum, voting in the committee or presenting the budget.  The most important part of the AGM is how you record of the AGM. 

The record of the meeting is called the Minutes.  Even if you do everything correctly, if you don’t have a detailed set of minutes to prove this, you may as well not have had the meeting.

These minutes should include details of everyone in attendance, quorum figures, voting and election results and be signed by the meeting president and secretary.

You can get a template for your AGM minutes on the Cyprus Communal Guide community hub.  I will include a link to this document in the video description.

What to do if no one turns up to your General Meeting.

So you set the date, notify all owners about the meeting and on the day only a few turn up.  While there are regulations that allow you to proceed with the meeting with low attendance (providing you follow the strict quorum steps in the regulations) this is still not great.  A lack of owner interest in the building is a negative environment and leads to higher default rates and difficulties in running the building.

So how do you increase attendance rates?  Well I will be covering that exact topic in the next episode of the communal property essentials video series.