Building Societies Act 1965

Management and administration - Meetings and resolutions

81: Special resolutions

You could also call this:

"Special rules for important decisions in a building society"

When a building society wants to make a special decision, they need to follow certain rules. Here's how it works:

A special resolution is a very important decision that needs strong support from the society's members. To pass a special resolution, at least three-quarters of the voting members must agree to it. They can vote in person or ask someone else to vote for them (called voting by proxy).

Before the vote happens, the society must tell all its members about the meeting and explain that they plan to make a special resolution. This is called giving notice.

Not everyone in the society can vote on a special resolution. You can vote if you're 18 years or older and were a member at the end of the last financial year. Sometimes, the society's rules might say you need to own at least $200 worth of shares in the society to vote.

The society must follow its own rules about how to give notice for meetings and how to hold them properly. Even if it's not in the society's usual rules, any meeting can include voting on a special resolution.

If the society makes new rules after this law was made, when they use the term "special resolution", they mean what's described here unless they say otherwise.

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This page was last updated on 15 April 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM372015.

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80: Right to demand a poll, or

"You can ask for a vote on important matters at building society meetings"

82: Notices of special resolutions, or

"Building societies must tell members about special decisions before meetings"

Part 7Management and administration
Meetings and resolutions

81Special resolutions

A resolution of a society shall be a special resolution when it has been passed by not less than three-fourths of the number of the members of the society qualified to vote on a special resolution, and voting, in person or by proxy, on a poll on the resolution, at a meeting of the society of which notice specifying the intention to move the resolution as a special resolution has been duly given.
The members qualified to vote on a special resolution at a meeting of the society shall be all the members aged 18 years or more who were also members at the end of the last financial year before the date of the meeting, except that, if the society's rules so provide, members who at the end of that financial year did not, or at the date of the meeting do not, hold shares in the society to a value of $200 or more shall not be qualified to vote.
For the purposes of this section—
notice of a meeting shall be taken to be duly given if the notice is given in the manner provided by this Act and by the society's rules:
a meeting of a society shall be taken to be duly held if it is held in the manner provided by the society's rules.

Notwithstanding anything in a society's rules, the business that may be dealt with at the annual general meeting, or at any other meeting, shall include any resolution to be passed as a special resolution.
In any rules made by a society after the commencement of this Act, the expression special resolution, unless the context otherwise requires, means a special resolution as defined in this section.

Compare

Building Societies Act 1962 s 69 (UK)

Notes

Section 81(2): amended, on 1 September 1987, by section 16 of the Building Societies Amendment Act 1987 (1987 No 175).
Section 81(2): amended, on 22 December 1980, by section 16(a) of the Building Societies Amendment Act 1980 (1980 No 92).