The committee of a Takapuna apartment building needed to replace the building's intercom system. Total cost: $52,000. They had the funds available. The project made sense. They voted on it at a committee meeting, emailed the result to all owners, and commissioned the work. Eighteen months later, a new owner challenged the decision. The committee, it turned out, had made a decision that wasn't theirs to make — spending long-term maintenance fund money on something outside the maintenance plan needed a special resolution of the owners at a general meeting, not a committee vote. The legal advice to resolve the situation cost $8,000.
The Unit Titles Act has three different types of resolution, and which one you need depends on what you're deciding. Getting this wrong doesn't just cause administrative headaches — it can make decisions legally invalid and leave the body corporate exposed to challenge.
An ordinary resolution is the most common. It requires more than 50% of the votes cast at a properly convened meeting where quorum is present. Routine decisions — approving the annual accounts, passing the operating budget, directing the committee on day-to-day matters — generally require an ordinary resolution.
A special resolution requires at least 75% of the votes cast by eligible voters. It applies to more significant decisions: spending long-term maintenance fund money outside the plan, decisions about common property that go beyond routine maintenance, opting out of certain requirements the Act would otherwise impose, and a range of other matters listed in the Act. Note what the threshold isn't: it isn't 75% of everyone in the building — it is 75% of the votes actually cast. Owners who don't vote don't count either way, which makes turnout matter enormously.
Then there are designated resolutions — the Act's extra protection for decisions with serious consequences, like selling common property or redeveloping units. These are passed as special resolutions, but every owner (and anyone with a registered interest in the property, like a bank) must be formally notified, and those who opposed the resolution have 28 days to object. It is the kind of decision that almost always warrants professional advice.
The committee vote that caused the Takapuna problem was a third kind of confusion: a committee resolution for something that required an owner vote at a general meeting. Committees have authority over routine management decisions. They don't have authority to pass resolutions that the Act requires to come from the full body of owners. The specific threshold for what is 'routine' versus what requires an owner resolution is sometimes clear and sometimes not, which is why having your manager flag it before a decision is made matters.
A few practical points. First, written resolutions — where owners vote outside a meeting — are permitted in some circumstances, but there are rules about how they work and they aren't a substitute for a properly convened meeting in situations that require one. Second, the body corporate secretary or manager should be keeping a decision register that records every resolution, the type, the vote count, and who voted. If that register doesn't exist, creating it is an early priority. Third, when in doubt, the more formal process is almost always safer than the shortcut.
The Takapuna committee wasn't being dishonest or careless — they genuinely didn't know what kind of resolution they needed. That is the most common reason this goes wrong. Understanding the framework early costs nothing and saves a lot.
Quarter is the new body corporate — transparent, owner-first, and built for the way people actually live together. See how it works at quarter.nz.