The Home and Youth Affairs Bureau is putting a proposed cap on the number of proxy votes one person may hold on hold for now, after more than half of consultation respondents opposed it. In proposals submitted to the Legislative Council on November 3, the bureau said there was no broad agreement on how to set a limit or identify and handle forms above it. It will continue studying whether a cap is workable and consult stakeholders.
Instead, the bureau proposes checking the greater of 20% of proxy forms received or 20 forms. If fewer than 20 forms are received, all would be checked. Where a building has engaged a licensed property management company or property manager, that organisation or person would carry out the checks; otherwise, responsibility would fall to the management committee chair.
The proposed checks would be backed by longer record-keeping: proxy forms would have to be kept for three years, rather than the current 12 months. Owners and their appointed representatives would also have to provide contact telephone numbers. Representatives would confirm on the form that they obtained it from the owner or took practicable steps to verify that the owner issued it.
The bureau is also proposing a narrower inspection right. Nearly three-quarters of respondents opposed an earlier proposal to let owners inspect every proxy form at a meeting; the revised proposal would allow an owner to inspect the form for their own unit.
A separate proposal to restrict who could act as a proxy is also being studied further. Nearly 70% opposed limiting representatives to an owner’s relatives or certain other people, such as owners in the same estate. The bureau’s account of the responses included concerns that verifying family relationships would be difficult and that restrictions could inconvenience owners living overseas or without relatives or acquaintances who own in the estate.
For procurement involving major repairs, the bureau proposes a three-tier system in which the number of owners required to vote in person would rise with the project’s cost. For a project averaging HK$120,000 per household, the reported threshold is at least 10% or 200 owners voting in person.