At the AGM of an 18-unit Ponsonby terrace development, the outgoing chair called for nominations for the committee. Silence. After a few moments, she asked if anyone was willing to stand. More silence. She declared the existing committee 'continuing in office' — which seemed reasonable at the time — and moved on with the meeting. A year later, when a dispute over a shared garden wall escalated to the Tenancy Tribunal, the respondent's solicitor pointed out that the committee had never actually been re-elected — and every decision it had made in the intervening twelve months was suddenly open to question.
Body corporate committee elections aren't optional, and they aren't a formality that can be skipped when nobody puts their hand up. The Unit Titles Act has specific requirements about how elections must be run, and what happens when they don't go as planned.
The basics: the committee is elected at each AGM. Owners can nominate themselves or other owners (with consent). If there are more nominees than positions on the committee, a vote is held. If there are fewer nominees than positions — or no nominees at all — there are specific procedures that need to be followed, and 'the old committee stays on' isn't one of them.
What should actually happen when nobody wants to stand? A smaller body corporate (nine units or fewer) can simply choose not to have a committee, and a larger one can make the same choice by special resolution — in which case the body corporate as a whole exercises the committee's functions. It can also try to recruit — approaching owners individually before the AGM to identify people willing to participate. Or it can engage a professional manager who takes on many of the administrative responsibilities that make the committee role feel like a burden.
Size matters too. If your development has more than nine principal units, the Act requires a committee — opting out is possible, but only by special resolution. Nine units or fewer, and a committee is optional: the body corporate as a whole can do the job, or set one up by ordinary resolution if it wants to.
Making committee membership more attractive isn't as hard as it sounds. The biggest reason people don't want to serve on a body corporate committee is that it feels like unpaid administrative work with no end to it. When a good manager handles the administration — preparing minutes, managing contractors, handling owner correspondence, tracking financials — the committee's job shifts to oversight and strategic decisions. That is a different proposition to being the person who personally chases up the plumber and answers emails about parking at 11pm.
There is also the question of what the role actually costs in time. A realistic estimate for a well-run committee member in a medium-sized building: two to three hours per month on average, with busier periods around the AGM and any significant maintenance projects. Making that time commitment clear, alongside what the role doesn't involve, tends to help.
The Ponsonby building sorted itself out after the Tribunal matter was resolved — new elections were held, a proper committee was constituted, and a manager was engaged to take the load off. The lesson wasn't that committee service is uniquely burdensome. It was that when the process is right and the support is there, people are more willing to step up.
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.