The other side: a year as a flat owner in the portal

Most articles in this guide are written for the management. This one is not. It describes what arrives on the other side — because a practice only introduces a portal sensibly if it knows what owners will do in it.

Renate Albers owns two flats in the association at Kastanienallee 8 in Berlin. She lives in one and lets the other to Mr Nowak. She works full time, travels a lot, and her contact with the management used to consist of one letter a year, an invitation to the assembly, and the occasional call she gave up on after the third ring.

January: the invitation

Ms Albers receives an email with a link that works once and expires after a while. She sets up her login; if she likes, she signs in with a passkey from then on, without a password. Under Profile she picks her language — the portal speaks seven — and how often she wants to hear by email: immediately, daily, weekly or monthly. She chooses weekly.

The Overview shows her two units, her association, the management with a contact person, and below that the latest news, documents and defects. It all runs in the browser, on the phone as on the computer.

The papers you would otherwise have to request

Under Documents is whatever the management has shared with her: the declaration of division, the minutes of recent years, the insurance policy, the economic plan. Sharing is targeted — to all owners, to specific units or to specific people. What her neighbour receives as personal post she does not see, and he does not see hers.

In March her bank wants the latest minutes and the economic plan for a refinancing. That used to be a phone call and three days of waiting. Now it is a download.

The assistant

If the management has switched on the AI features, the portal has an Assistant. Ms Albers asks: "When was the façade renovation resolved, and how much am I paying for it?"

The assistant answers only from the documents she is allowed to see, and names the document the answer comes from. If it cannot find the answer, it says so and offers to report a defect or contact the management, rather than making something up. Next to an economic plan or a statement under Documents there is Explain: the answer then refers to exactly that document, and her own approved settlement figures are taken into account — never a neighbour's. What she asks is not stored.

May: the garage

The garage door no longer closes properly. Under Defects Ms Albers reports it with a description and two photos; up to five are possible. A building's defect list is communal: she also sees what others have reported, and notices that her neighbour reported the door the day before. She comments there.

She follows the defect and gets its updates until it is handled. Anyone who no longer wants to follow a defect opts out, and it stays that way. She sees the status, the company and trade of the contractor — no phone numbers — and the sub-tasks the management has broken the job into.

News instead of a notice board

Under News are the management's announcements, pinned ones first: the date of the heating service, the invitation to the assembly, the notice that the water will be off for two hours on Monday. Urgent announcements arrive by email immediately, whatever her weekly setting. If the management has chosen translation, she reads the notice in her portal language, marked as machine-translated; the original remains available.

June: after the assembly

After the assembly the resolutions appear under Resolutions in her association's register, numbered, with wording and outcome. The minutes arrive as a document. If she is named as a signatory, she receives a link and signs the minutes in the browser.

She voted in the assembly, not in the portal. The portal is where she reads what was resolved.

Her own annual statement

As soon as the management has approved the annual settlement, her individual statement is under Annual statements — per flat, her share of every cost type, the advances and the resulting balance, also as a PDF. Not before, and only for her own units.

She still pays her contributions as before. The portal is not a payment channel.

As a landlord

For the let flat Ms Albers has an area of her own. Under My tenants she records Mr Nowak as the tenant of her flat — the first time with a declaration per flat — and invites him into the tenant portal. She can share a document with him, such as the house rules. When the tenancy ends, she ends it there herself. She can never touch a co-owner's flat, not even in the same building.

Under News for my tenants she writes Mr Nowak a notice, for example about the date for replacing the smoke detectors. With AI she can have the text drafted. The management does not see these notices; they are between landlord and tenant.

When Mr Nowak reports something, it lands under Tenant issues with her first. The sticking balcony door she sorts out with him directly. The patch on the ceiling that comes from above she passes on with Escalate to the management and a short reason; the management then sees the same issue with its original report. How that route works in detail is in Water damage: from the tenant's report to a closed defect.

What the portal is not

No native app, no payment channel, no online voting, and no operating-cost statement for her tenant. It is the place where an owner finds her building's papers, status and news without having to reach anyone.

What this means for the management

Every question answered in the portal is one call fewer — and those calls come bunched in the weeks when you have least time: after the invitation, after the minutes, after the settlement. But a portal only takes off your desk what is in it. Sharing the right documents is therefore the real rollout step, not the invitation.

The essentials

• Papers, status and news in one place — shared deliberately, not wholesale.
• Defects are visible to the community; whoever follows hears about every step.
• The individual statement is ready as soon as it is approved, and only one's own.
• Letting owners manage their tenants themselves, and issues reach the management only when they concern the association.