56 QUORUM LIST
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Dear Hillgrove Owners
Your VOC committee representation has remained remarkably stable over a long period and this has provided a welcome level of continuity in Village management, even as our estate managers have changed several times.
The Village Owners Committee has worked hard to improve communications. One element in our success has been our ability to run meetings in both Cantonese and English, with the assistance of bilingual VOC members and managers.
This VOC regards its most important role to be to watch over village income and expenses. This proved to be challenging:
In November, the Hillgrove village owners committee discovered that one owner had not paid management fees since 2003. This came to light due to a review of the accounts conducted by a VOC member, who is an experienced accountant. The debt had evidently been concealed from the VOC and the owners.
To this day this committee has been united in its unceasing efforts to recover the debt according to the Deed of Mutual Covenant and they are unanimous in their belief that compound interest should be applied.
The Vice-Chair, in particular, pushed to have direct contact with Ernest Lee, who currently heads City Management. Finally, on 27th October, this meeting will happen with three committee members attending.
It is imperative that the VOC has clarity on the situation before the forthcoming Owners Meeting as owner support for legal action may be needed. The 57 QUORUM LIST message will provide information from this meeting.
We need better communications between interested parties to avoid problems and better maintain standards:
Village Owners Meetings [AGM] – the directed poll vote
In the past village, owners have become disillusioned by the tedious procedure used at Village Owners Meetings.. Following a recent Lands Tribunal judgement in favour of the Parkridge Village Chairman, we now have the freedom to handle the business of Owners’ meetings in an efficient and owner-friendly way.
Specifically, the Chairman may set out the “time, manner, and place” for any poll vote called to decide questions put to the Owners’ Meeting. It is only necessary to maintain a quorum of 20% of the Owners until such time as a poll vote is called. The Chairman may then suspend (adjourn) the meeting and direct at what time, place and method will be used for the poll vote. For example, owners may be directed to deposit their votes within a defined period in a ballot box set up in the Local Management Office. Another option would be to direct that there be an option to mail-in ballots.
Village Owners Committee to/from all owners/residents
The manager takes the view that The Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (the “PDPO”) prevents them from providing the village owners’ contact details to their representatives in the VOC, even the Chairperson. Hence the VOC is completely out of contact with most absentee landlords, who are an increasing proportion of our demographic.
The manager has agreed that the Chairman may write A LETTER TO ALL OWNERS to be sent with the official notification of the forthcoming Owners Meeting.
There will be an invitation to ALL OWNERS to provide their contact details, in confidence to the VOC Chairman.
Most of the current VOC members have been in office since October 2014. We have tried hard to gather the email addresses of as many owners as possible at previous Owners Meetings. No surprise that many owners have sold their properties over the last three years so we now have an active email list of only around 78 owners, just 20% of the total! We absolutely must have more communication between the owners and the VOC.
This is now the 56th QUORUM LIST message, but this has the distinction of being generated from Hillgrove’s own laptop and through Hillgrove’s own domain:
www.hillgrovevillage.com
The challenge today is to make available the important information, including all the archives to ALL OWNERS and to foster two-way communication between the owners and their representatives efficiently and effectively
Village Owners Committee to/from management
There has been several legal cases between “CM” (Discovery Bay Service Management Limited) and individual owners of other villages. Some of have been concluded, others are ongoing, and at least one more is likely to be initiated.
For those owners who have participated as plaintiffs or defendants, or taken a deep interest as observers , there is more clarity on the respective powers of the manager, the individual owner, and village chairpersons, and in particular the COC committee. The clear power vested in the VOC Chairman, as described above with respect to Village Owner’s Meetings is a major breakthrough and will be appreciated by all owners who have endured lengthy and uninspiring Owners Meetings in the past.
On the day-to-day running and maintenance of the estate, we see no fundamental problems and the relations between the committee and the manager have been at least businesslike and often friendly.. However the VOC has detected administrative problems, such as long term debtors, where the response time by the Manager has been unacceptable. The VOC is having to take a more directive tone and create a task list with target complete dates rather than random items on an agenda. The renovation project was completed within budget and on time, and management played an important role, however some items budgeted for but not within the main contract have taken too long to finish. We have noted good cooperation from the manager in terms of communications recently. . The VOC and the manager have worked hard on the preparation of the VOC meeting agenda and minutes. Agendas and minutes going back to 2014 are available on this website.
More importantly, the latest minutes will be available on the website, and therefore accessible to ABSENTEE OWNERS.
Improvements are evident but we must strive for more efficiency and participation from the Hillgrove Owners.
Village Owners Committee to/from CIty Owners Committee [COC]
Either the VOC Chairman or the Vice-Chairman, may participate and vote on the City Owners Committee. VOC members and owners are invited to be observers at the COC meetings. The COC minutes are also available on the Hillgrove website.
Best wishes
Ed Rainbow
Chairman Hillgrove Village Owners Committee