How many members are needed to request a special general meeting?

There is no single national number of members needed to request a special general meeting at a building society. The threshold is set by each society's own rules, so the figure differs from one organisation to the next. What is consistent is the principle: a special general meeting is a meeting of the whole membership, called outside the annual cycle, and it takes a group of members acting together to force one.

Building societies are mutual organisations. When you save or borrow with one, you become a member rather than a customer, and members have a say in how the organisation is run, including charity partnerships and decisions about running the society¹. Members will usually have the chance to attend annual general meetings, ask questions and vote on decisions². A special general meeting is the mechanism for putting a specific matter to the membership between those annual gatherings.

Because the qualifying number lives in the rulebook rather than in a statute that applies to every society, the practical first step for any member is to ask their society what its rules require. The rest of this page sets out how the request works, who counts as a member, what happens after a valid request, and where a request can fail.

What a special general meeting is and why members call one

A special general meeting is a formal gathering of a society's members, held outside the annual general meeting cycle, to consider a matter that members want the whole membership to decide on. It is the collective route: one member cannot normally summon it, but a group that meets the threshold in the rules can require the board to call one.

The reason members reach for it is that mutuals are owned by their members, not by shareholders. That ownership is not decorative. Members have a say in how the organisation is run, including charity partnerships and decisions about running the society¹. Where a decision is significant enough that members want it debated and voted on by the membership as a whole, and the board is not putting it to an annual meeting, a special general meeting is the tool the rules provide.

The matters that prompt one tend to be structural or strategic: a proposed merger or takeover, a change to the society's rules, a demutualisation proposal, or a decision members believe should not be taken without them. The building society demutualisation page explains what happens when a society converts to a bank, which is one of the situations where members have historically wanted a say.

It helps to separate two things. The right to attend and vote at meetings is a general member right. The right to require a meeting is a narrower, procedural right with a number attached, and that number is where most requests succeed or fail.

The number of members needed is set by law and the society's rules

The qualifying number is not uniform. It comes from a combination of the society's own registered rules and the general law that governs how mutual organisations call meetings, and the two together produce a different figure for different societies. That is why no single answer applies across the sector.

What the law does provide is the framework that makes member requests meaningful. Banks and building societies are required by law to have a written complaints process which tells customers how to make a complaint⁵, so there is always a defined internal route when a member believes the society has not followed its own rules. Beyond that, the specific threshold for calling a meeting is a matter for each rulebook.

The practical consequence for a member is that the number you need is knowable, but you have to go and find it. Ask the society's secretary, in writing, for the rule that sets out how many members must sign a request for a special general meeting, and for the notice period that applies. Keep the reply. If the society later disputes that your request was valid, that written answer is the record of what it told you.

Building societies and credit unions: how the requirements differ

Building societies and credit unions are both mutuals, but they are different kinds of organisation and their membership rules differ in ways that matter to anyone trying to organise a meeting.

A building society is open to anyone who saves or borrows with it, and its members are its customers. A credit union works differently. All credit unions in the UK may only accept members who have a "common bond"⁶. That common bond is what defines the membership: members share it by living, working, studying or volunteering in a certain area, working in the same industry or for certain employers, or belonging to the same trade union⁷. Anyone can become a member, but you must share a common bond with other members⁸.

That difference shapes how a meeting request is built. A building society's membership is broad and dispersed, so gathering signatures means reaching people who may have no connection to each other beyond the society. A credit union's membership is already a defined community, which can make organising easier, but it also means the membership is smaller and the rulebook thresholds are set with that scale in mind.

Credit union membership also carries conditions that building society membership does not. You must be a member of a credit union to get a loan from them, and some will ask you to build up savings first⁹. Joining normally means being asked to pay a small fee, for example £2, or saving a certain amount such as £10⁷. Eligibility has been widening: students, local workers and relatives of existing members are among the groups being brought in¹⁰.

Who counts as a qualifying member

The question of who counts is where a request is most often challenged, because the answer is not always obvious from the account you hold.

The starting point is that membership follows from the relationship, not from a separate application. With a building society, saving or borrowing makes you a member¹. With a credit union, membership is based on a common bond and you have to join deliberately, usually by visiting or calling your chosen credit union to confirm what information you need⁸.

Joint accounts are the common complication. A joint account normally allows two or more people to receive payments, pay by debit card, transfer money and manage the account, depending on the bank¹¹, and each account holder can withdraw money without asking the other person¹². Each named holder is a customer in their own right. Whether each is counted separately as a member for the purposes of a meeting request is a question for the society's rules, and it is worth asking explicitly rather than assuming.

There is a related point about how joint money is treated elsewhere, which shows why the rules matter. Interest earned in a joint account will usually be split equally between each person, with tax only due if a share is above the annual allowance¹¹. The system treats joint holders as distinct individuals for tax. Whether a society's rulebook does the same for membership numbers is a separate question, and only the rulebook answers it.

If you are acting for someone else, expect to have to prove your authority. Where a request is made on another person's behalf, the organisation will probably need proof that you have the person's permission¹³. That principle runs through how firms handle member and customer requests generally, and it applies here too.

How to request a special general meeting

The process is administrative rather than adversarial, and it works best done in writing and in order.

1. Find the rule. Ask the society's secretary, in writing, for the rule that sets the number of members needed to request a special general meeting, and the notice period that applies. Keep the reply.
2. Confirm who counts. Ask how the society treats joint account holders and members who hold more than one account, so you know how many signatures you actually need.
3. State the purpose. Set out plainly what the meeting is for. A request that does not say what members are being asked to decide is easy to set aside.
4. Collect the signatures. Gather the required number of qualifying members, with their names and enough detail for the society to verify each one against its records.
5. Submit the request. Send it to the society's registered office or secretary, keep a dated copy, and ask for written acknowledgement.
6. Follow up in writing. If the society does not respond, write again and set a reasonable date for a reply, referring to its own rules.

The pattern of asking for a decision in writing, being told the reasons, and having a route to challenge it is the same one that runs through consumer complaint handling generally. Where a decision is unclear, it is reasonable to ask for an explanation of the reasons for it if you are unsure whether the decision is right, or if you want more information to help you challenge it⁷.

What happens after a valid request is made

Once a valid request is received, the obligation shifts to the board. The society must consider the request and, if it meets the rules, call the meeting and give members notice in the way the rules require.

The way organisations handle requests that they consider burdensome is instructive, because the same discipline applies. Where an organisation decides a request is excessive, it must consider each request on a case-by-case basis and explain its reasoning to you¹⁴. The same expectation of a reasoned, individual decision applies to a member request: a blanket refusal without reasons is weaker than a considered one.

Members should also expect the meeting itself to follow the society's rules on notice, quorum and voting. The idea of a quorum is standard in mutual and committee governance: a committee of 9 members, including a chairperson and deputy chairperson, with a quorum of five members, is a typical arrangement¹⁵. A special general meeting will have its own quorum requirement, and if it is not met the meeting cannot transact business.

If the meeting goes ahead, the outcome depends on the votes cast. A special general meeting can direct the board on the matter it was called for, but it cannot override the law or the society's registered rules. Members who want to change the rules themselves need to look at the procedure for rule amendments, which is a separate process.

Where a request can be refused or fail

Requests fail for a handful of recurring reasons, and most of them are procedural rather than political.

The most common is that the threshold was not met. If the society's rules require a set number of qualifying members and the request falls short, the board is not obliged to act. This is why confirming how joint holders and multiple accounts are counted matters before you collect signatures, not after.

The second is that the request does not identify a proper purpose. A meeting has to be called to decide something. A request that amounts to a general complaint about how the society is run, without a decision for members to take, gives the board little to work with.

The third is that the society disputes who counts as a member. This is where the joint account question bites. If the society counts a joint account as one membership and the request assumed two, the numbers can fall apart.

There is also a harder edge to how organisations can respond to requests they consider unreasonable. Sometimes it is acceptable for an organisation to refuse some or all of a request without telling you why¹⁴. That latitude exists in data protection law, and while it does not map directly onto company or society rules, it shows that a refusal without reasons is not automatically improper. Members who want reasons should ask for them in writing and keep asking.

Getting help if your request is ignored

The first step is always the society's own complaints process. Banks and building societies are required by law to have a written complaints process which tells customers how to make a complaint⁵, so there is a defined route and a defined timescale.

If that route does not produce an answer, the Financial Ombudsman Service is the next stage. The rule is consistent across the ombudsman's guidance: make a formal complaint to the company first, and if they do not send you a final response letter within eight weeks, or you are unhappy with their response, you can bring the complaint to the ombudsman⁴. The same eight-week trigger appears across the ombudsman's consumer guidance¹⁶.

It is worth being clear about what the ombudsman can and cannot do. It looks at whether a firm has treated a customer fairly in its handling of the matter. It is not a route for overturning a commercial or strategic decision that members disagree with, and it does not run the society. What it can do is examine whether the society followed its own rules and its complaints process properly.

For free, impartial help understanding your options, MoneyHelper is the government-backed service for money questions, and it covers how credit union current accounts work as well as wider banking matters⁷. Citizens Advice can also help you work out what your rights are and how to put a complaint in writing⁵. If the dispute is about the society's conduct rather than a product, the complaining about the FCA page explains the limits of what the regulators will take up.