Keeping the register of resolutions without gaps

Of all the duties of a condominium manager, the Beschluss-Sammlung, the register of resolutions, is the most thankless. It costs time continuously, nobody praises it, and if it is missing, nothing happens for years. That changes at exactly one of three moments: a challenge to a resolution, an ownership change with a thorough buyer, or a change of manager. Then it is suddenly the most important document in the building.

What the statute requires

§ 24 (7) WEG obliges the manager to keep a register of resolutions. Its defining features:

Consecutive numbering. Entries are numbered consecutively. Gaps defeat the register's purpose, because a third party has to be able to see that it is complete. A register with holes proves exactly the opposite.

With the date. Every entry carries the date the resolution was passed.

Kept without delay. The entry is made once the resolution has been passed, and not at year end or just before the next assembly.

What belongs in it. Resolutions passed in the assembly, resolutions passed outside an assembly by circular procedure, and the operative parts of court decisions concerning those resolutions.

Noted, not overwritten. If a resolution is challenged, set aside or amended by a later one, that is noted. The original entry stays. If entries can be corrected, the register only documents what is meant to apply today and no longer what was resolved. Those are two entirely different pieces of information.

Open to inspection. Every unit owner may demand to see it. In practice this means you must be able to produce it at short notice, complete and in presentable form.

The four mistakes you see again and again

1. It is caught up on rather than kept. This is the most common case. After the assembly the minutes exist, and the register gets "done when there's time". Two assemblies later somebody reconstructs from minutes what should have been built up continuously. The content may be right, but how it came about can no longer be traced.

2. Circular resolutions are missing. Resolutions from the assembly reliably reach the register. The ones passed in writing in between are often missing because they arise in a different folder, although they belong in it just as much.

3. Numbering is issued by hand. Sooner or later a number is then issued twice, skipped, or reissued after a correction. As long as a person types the number, the gap is only a matter of time.

4. Old entries get corrected. A resolution is challenged, and somebody edits the entry so that "nothing wrong is in there". That makes the register worthless as evidence. It shows a tidied present from which you can no longer tell what was resolved.

Why the numbering is the real crux

All four mistakes share one root: the register is a second document that somebody has to maintain alongside the place where resolutions actually arise.

Anything maintained twice drifts apart. That has little to do with negligence. Assembly season lasts two weeks, and during those weeks the register is the task that gets postponed. More discipline does not change much here; the problem only goes away when there is no second document at all.

If resolutions arise in the same place the register is kept, the register no longer needs a work step of its own and becomes simply a view. The number is issued when the resolution is passed, and not later when it is written up. Since nobody types it, it can neither be duplicated nor skipped.

That is how Condomana is built. Every assembly resolution is recorded automatically as soon as it is passed; a circular resolution runs through the same engine and lands in the same register. A number once issued is never reused. Entries can only be added to: challenges, court decisions and corrections are noted and never overwrite what was there before. For a handover, the whole register can be exported.

The change of manager

When you take a building over, the predecessor's register is the most important document you request, more important even than the accounting. You can reconstruct the figures, but you cannot reconstruct the state of resolutions. Without the register you do not know what applies in this community: which house rules were resolved, which structural alterations were approved, and where cost apportionment was agreed differently. This is the point at which it becomes clear whether the register was actually kept.

Two practical notes:

• Request the register in writing and document that you did. Otherwise an incomplete register becomes your problem later, although you never kept it.
• Check the numbering for gaps before you take over. It takes five minutes, and afterwards you know what you are inheriting.

The same applies the other way round: when you hand a building on, you close the handover cleanly and fastest if you can export a complete register. That too speaks for a system that keeps it anyway.

When the register has gaps

This case is common: you inherit a register that is incomplete, or you discover gaps in your own. There is no elegant solution, but there is an honest way through:

1. Reconstruct from the minutes, as far as they reach. Assembly minutes are the primary source.
2. Mark the reconstructed part as such. An entry created after the fact is not the same as one kept at the time, and the register should show that difference.
3. Keep the register properly from the cutover date on. A clean restart with a documented prior history is worth considerably more than a gapless history that does not exist and is merely asserted.

Do not invent numbers to close gaps. A register that looks complete and is not is worse than one that shows its gaps openly.

Quick check

Put five questions to your own register, for every building you manage:

1. Is the last resolution of the last assembly entered, and when was it entered?
2. Are the circular resolutions of the past twelve months in it?
3. Are there gaps in the numbering?
4. Where a resolution was challenged, is there a note, and is the original entry still readable?
5. Could you produce the register in full tomorrow morning if an owner asked?

If you hesitate on more than one, this is where going digital pays off first, even before the accounting. How that fits into a sensible order is in the five-step roadmap.