Composition Of Board Of Directors Nationalities In A Condo Estate

[alohaelek]

Recently our condo held an AGM. It was badly organised and conducted. There was no proposer for a motion or seconder and finally the meeting abruptly ended because of questioning from the co-owners and the need of clarifications. The new board of directors insisted that they have the mandate from the meeting. A voting at the start of the meeting was carried out for the new directors. 7 new directors were elected and the old board were retained mostly and they inducted new directors into their clique. The new board comprise of foreigners , or foreigners who have taken up Thai citizenship and probably possessing dual nationailities. Is there a law somewhere stating that the Board must have at least 51% composition of Thai directors as it is a Thai juristic body ? There is now an impending split into the community. The foreigners against the Thais. The foreign directors insist that it is not their duty or their responsibilities to understand the Thai laws and whatever they are doing is with good intentions. We looked at the Condo bye- laws and regulations and found that the previous committee have undertaken projects without the necessary majority of votes. Budgets were exceeded and projects taken without being transparent. The new AGM was conducted nearly one year after the fiscal year. The income of the estate is now less than expenses and the Thais and some of the awared foreigners are worried that at the end of the day, all the money in the sinking fund will be spent in beautifying the estate and add-ons which will not mutually benefit the whole community and the common fees will keep on increasing every year.

Could anyone please clarify on the methodology used in vote counting used for the election of directors. Assuming that the co-owners have agreed to have a Board Committee of 7 Directors. And that there were 9 nominees for the board. The system used was that one person one vote ( depending on the condo area, and to make it simple all units are of same area- one unit = 1 vote=1point. Some co-owners may have more than one unit, for example 3 units, so the co-owner will get 3 votes/points ). So the foreigners voted for 7 of their co foreign friends into the board. ( They will vote or tick 7 times against the names so in essence, they will get 7 votes/points ). But say the Thai co-owner doesnt like the 7 persons and voted only for one person in the nomination list. So he gets only 3 votes/points ! If we go by the condo law and add up all the votes in the matrix, it will be more than what is allowed in the condo act on all the points/votes. We have spoken to many persons and they were surprised that they were using the wrong method all the while. The interpretation of the Condo Law is that One person can only vote one time ! Hoping someone could help.

[siam4ever]

I sympathize with you but alas have no answers. Our condo board has gone steadily down hill as it becomes more dominated by loudmouth aggressive farang. The Thais no longer see it as worth it to have to be in the same room as the farang with their abundance of "good" ideas. The farang like to fire everyone and shake things up and then get disgusted and leave.