Q: Could you advise us on the legal requirements for an annual AGM for a limited residents’ company such as ours. We have been holding formal AGM meetings for some years but with declining attendance a less formal format would be preferable, if permitted.
A: FPRA Committee Member Bob Slee replies:
The lack of interest in AGMs, at least so long as everything is running smoothly, is a common issue.
I wrote an article about this in the Summer 2017 FPRA Newsletter (Issue 121) describing how we had successfully tackled this in the block that I manage. The key issue is that the arrangements relating to your AGMs will almost certainly be mandated by your articles of association. If you wish to take advantage of the greater flexibilities provided for smaller companies in the Companies Act of 2006 (as we did) then it would be necessary for you to get agreement from your members to amending the articles and to re-register them at Companies House.
In our case, we consulted a solicitor on the wording of the revised articles to ensure that we were adequately protecting ourselves and our members in making the particular changes we had in mind and also that our revision would be acceptable to Companies House.
Question submitted February 2018