managing agents and OMC secretary

beaufoy

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Dav010

beaufoy wrote: »

Is it normal for someone to show a conflict of interest by way of being a secretary of the OMC company in an apt complex and at the same time be a share holder and manager of the managing agents who run said apt complex

Assuming the secretary is a unit owner and declares their interest in the management agents, is there a conflict of interest? Are all decisions of the OMC not voted on by the members?

I was secretary of our MC, effectively it meant I kept minutes of meetings and responded to queries, I had no more power than any other person who attended the AGM.

Most of my time was taken up answering queries from people who hadn’t bothered to attend AGMs, thought the OMC were in some way wasting their money, and were generally clueless about what is involved in being a member of an OMC by virtue of owning a property.

beaufoy

Dav010 wrote: »

Assuming the secretary is a unit owner and declares their interest in the management agents, is there a conflict of interest? Are all decisions of the OMC not voted on by the members?

I was secretary of our MC, effectively it meant I kept minutes of meetings and responded to queries, I had no more power than any other person who attended the AGM.

Well during the seven years of ownership I have never been informed of a AGM. Now in theory any member of a OMC can obtain contact details of all other members and so write to said members asking if they know (ie has interest been declared) that their secretary is also a share holder and manager of the managing agents. However, the secretary has the job of keeping said list and he might well ignore the requests for the list of OMC members...my request was ignored
I do know of the trick to keep AGMs a secret ie the OMC sends out what looks like junk mail ie maybe a complaint about loud music then hidden at the end of the letter in small print is a notification of an AGM

Dav010

beaufoy wrote: »

Well during the seven years of ownership I have never been informed of a AGM. Now in theory any member of a OMC can obtain contact details of all other members and so write to said members asking if they know (ie has interest been declared) that their secretary is also a share holder and manager of the managing agents. However, the secretary has the job of keeping said list and he might well ignore the requests for the list of OMC members...my request was ignored

Under GDPR, would you be entitled to the private data of other unit owners?

To be honest, it would be improbable that attendees at an AGM would not know that the secretary is connected to the agents, EA managers tend to have a reasonably high profile.

Also, it is worth baring in mind, directors of the OMC are elected by members votes, they cannot just assume the position.

From my own experience, being on the board of management is a pain in the ass. It is time consuming and a thankless task dealing with clueless property owners.

Baby01032012

If the managing agent is also provide a company secretarial service to the OMC it is likely that one of the senior mngt of the managing agent will be the co sec. that is the situation in most agents. It’s very different to acting as director and being part of the managing agent.