General meeting agenda: what the condo board must have put on it

A badly worded item cannot be voted on, and a late request never makes the agenda. Here is how to get your subjects listed, and how to word them.

Every year, boards open the meeting notice to discover that the subject they had been pushing for six months is not on it. Sometimes the manager forgot; more often the request arrived after the agenda was drafted, or in an unusable form.

The agenda is not a list of themes: it is the list of what the meeting will be able to vote on. Anything not on it cannot produce a valid decision, even if everyone agrees on the day. Which makes wording as important as timing.

Timing decides everything

Send your requests to the manager **at least two months before the planned meeting date**, and do not wait until you have every quote: send the wording first, the documents follow. An item announced early is an item that finds its place.

A useful marker: if you are requesting a quote at the same time as the agenda item, you are already late. See requesting quotes from the manager, which must go out first.

Wording an item that can actually be voted on

A votable resolution answers four questions: what, how much, by whom, and on what basis. "Terrace waterproofing renewal" cannot be voted on. "Approval of the works to renew the waterproofing of building B terrace, for an amount of X, awarded to contractor Y per the quote dated [date] attached to the notice" can.

Beware the classic trap: an open item such as "discussion of the state of the common areas" leads to no decision at all. If you want a decision, draft a resolution; if you only want to inform, plan a separate information point, clearly labelled as such.

The agenda request template

1. Subject: request to add items to the agenda of the general meeting of [date] — condo association [name].
2. Dear Sir or Madam, in line with the board duty to assist in preparing the general meeting, we ask you to add the following items to the agenda.
3. Item 1: [full wording of the resolution, with amount, contractor and reference to the attached quote].
4. Corresponding attachments: [list of documents to include with the notice].
5. Item 2: [same].
6. Please confirm by return that these items are on the agenda, together with the planned date for sending the notice.
7. Yours faithfully, [Name], [role], [date].

What is not on the agenda does not legally exist, however unanimous the room.

The five subjects boards most often forget

• The board annual report itself, announced as an agenda item — see the ready-to-fill template.
• Renewal of board members whose term is ending.
• Contracts expiring in the coming year, which will need competitive bidding.
• Works spotted during the annual walk-through — see the walk-through checklist.
• Follow-up on decisions approved last year and never carried out.

Check the notice the day it arrives

When the notice arrives, do one thing before anything else: check that your items are on it, in the wording you asked for, with their attachments. An error caught then can still be fixed; caught in the room, it costs you a year.

For the wider preparation, see preparing your board before the general meeting and the complete guide to the general meeting.

Lose nothing between two meetings

Most subjects missing from the agenda were not forgotten: they were lost. Decided in a board meeting, jotted in a notebook, never picked up again. With CoproHarmony, every decision and every issue stays available all year, ready to become a resolution. Create your space for free.

If a resolution looks irregular, read how to challenge a general meeting decision within the deadline.