The history of the building: keeping a building logbook and handing it over

Two years ago Jens Bergmann took over the association at Am Lindenhof 4 in Kassel, twenty units, built in 1972. The previous manager handed him fourteen binders. That the heating had been replaced in 2016 was on an invoice in binder nine. That there had been water damage in the kitchen riser in 2021 he only learned when the same pipe started dripping again in his second winter.

German condominium law does not require a building logbook. It is needed all the time anyway: when an owner sells and the buyer wants to know what has been done to the building in recent years, when the assembly discusses a renovation, and when the management changes. This article shows how Mr Bergmann keeps one in Condomana.

What the logbook shows on its own

The Building logbook sits under Property & operations. It shows everything that has happened to the building, newest first and grouped by month. Most of it nobody writes in specially. Condomana reads the entries, at the moment someone opens the logbook, from the places where they were recorded anyway:

Because nothing is copied, nothing can drift apart. If Mr Bergmann corrects the title of a defect, the new title is in the logbook the next time it is opened. If a resolved defect is reopened, the logbook reflects that too.

Adding the years before Condomana

None of these sources knows what happened before the takeover. That is what your own entries are for. With Add entry Mr Bergmann records a date, a title, optionally a text, and who can see it. He can also link a document of the association, such as the scanned invoice or a surveyor's report.

In his first month he went through the previous manager's binders and created nine entries this way. Three of them:

• May 2009: roof re-covered, with the acceptance report linked as a document.
• September 2016: gas condensing boiler replaces the old boiler, with the invoice.
• February 2021: water damage in the kitchen riser, pipe on the second floor replaced. This entry is visible to staff only, because it concerns one particular owner's flat.

For visibility he chooses between Staff only, Owners and Owners and residents. Every change to an entry of his own is in the activity log. Documents addressed to a single person cannot be linked. In the portal, the link also appears only for readers who may open the document anyway.

Who sees what in the portal

Owners read their association's logbook in the portal. Each source decides what appears there:

• A defect is visible to owners only when it concerns the common property, meaning it is not assigned to a flat and did not start as a tenant's issue. Even then they see only the title, with no description and no comments.
• For a contractor job the portal shows only the defect's title. The contractor's name, address and job text stay with the practice.
• An inspection round appears the way Mr Bergmann shared the report when he finished it: with all owners, with the advisory board only, or with staff only.
• A former owner sees only what happened while they were an owner.
• Tenants see only what is shared with owners and residents, and only for the building they live in.

Filtering, searching, exporting

In the staff view the logbook can be narrowed to one kind of entry, a date range and a search term in the title or text. Before the spring assembly Mr Bergmann searches for "roof" and gets one list with the re-covering from 2009, two reported defects on the gutter and last autumn's inspection round.

Export PDF downloads exactly that view, with the same filters. The PDF holds the newest 2,000 entries; if you need more, narrow the date range and export in several parts.

The PDF is the staff view. It includes entries visible to staff only, and its Visible to column shows who each entry is shared with. Read it before you pass it on.

When a flat is sold

An owner is selling her flat on the third floor. The buyer asks for an overview of what has been done to the common property over the last ten years. Mr Bergmann sets ten years as the date range and exports Logbook entry, Maintenance completed and Defect resolved one after the other. Two of these lists contain entries visible to staff only: the water damage of 2021 and two defects assigned to individual flats. He agrees with the seller what the buyer should receive and blacks out those lines before passing the PDFs on.

The seller can read the logbook in the portal herself anyway, as far as it is shared with owners.

When the management changes

When the association changes its manager, the history of the building goes to the successor as a PDF, without filters or, with very many entries, in date ranges. The successor gets the main events in order and does not have to piece them together from binders.

The handover also includes the resolutions register, which under § 24 (7) and (8) WEG the manager keeps and which Condomana exports as PDF, CSV and JSON, and the full export under Settings → Export with the master data and every document in its original form. The logbook itself is not part of that export; your own entries travel in the PDF. What the takeover looks like from the other side is described in Taking over a building from the previous manager.

Anyone taking over an association whose previous manager kept no logbook starts the way Mr Bergmann did: with an afternoon, the binders, and the five or ten events someone is bound to ask about later. Everything after that is recorded by the daily work in the defect list, maintenance, inspection rounds and assemblies.

The essentials

• The building logbook reads defects, maintenance, contractor jobs, inspection rounds, assemblies, resolutions and announcements live from their sources. None of it needs maintaining.
• Your own entries add the years before Condomana, each with its own visibility and optionally a document.
• In the portal everyone sees only what is meant for them; defect descriptions and contractor details stay with the practice.
• The PDF is the staff view with every internal entry. Check it before it goes to a buyer or a successor.