Online and hybrid assemblies: when owners vote in the portal

Markus Engel manages the WEG Am Stadtpark 3 in Nuremberg, which has eighteen units. Three owners do not live in Nuremberg, one of them in Lisbon. Last year two proxy forms only arrived on the morning of the assembly, and one of them was illegible. So at the spring assembly the community resolved that owners may in future also take part online.

What follows is the next assembly, the first with online participation. The example applies to properties in Germany; in other countries Condomana does not offer these assembly forms.

First the resolution, then the assembly

Owners may take part online only once the community has resolved it. German condominium law (WEG) knows two forms:

• Hybrid assembly (§ 23 (1) sentence 2 WEG): there is a venue, and owners may additionally take part online and exercise their rights electronically. The statute names no special majority and no time limit; an accepted resolution is enough.
• Virtual assembly (§ 23 (1a) WEG, since 17 October 2024): the assembly takes place with no venue at all. The resolution for it needs at least three quarters of the votes cast, and it carries for at most three years from the day it was passed.

Mr Engel opens the property page and there the Online assemblies card. Under Link resolutions he picks the spring resolution from the property's resolutions register. Only then does Condomana offer the choice Hybrid (owners may also take part online) under Participation for a new assembly. As long as no resolution is linked, the option stays greyed out, with the reason beside it.

For a virtual assembly Condomana checks more: whether the linked resolution was accepted, whether it reached three quarters, and whether the assembly falls within the three years. For the three quarters Condomana counts abstentions as votes cast. That is the more cautious reading, and it fits here because the whole assembly form depends on this one resolution. If a resolution was entered by hand without a tally, its majority cannot be recomputed. Condomana then accepts it and notes visibly that the majority cannot be verified.

There is also a transitional rule in § 48 (6) WEG. A community that passes the virtual-assembly resolution before 2028 must still meet in person once a year up to and including 2028, unless the owners have waived that unanimously. A breach does not void any resolution. Condomana therefore warns when a virtual assembly is convened in such a year without an in-person assembly, but does not block it.

Convening: a link that does not come from Condomana

Mr Engel creates the assembly like any other, type In person, with the agenda and a voting rule per item, and under Participation picks the hybrid form. Only one field is added, the Video meeting link. Condomana itself carries no picture and no sound. The community uses whatever it already knows; here that is a Jitsi room, and Zoom or Teams would do just as well.

The invitation goes out as usual. In the portal the owners find the assembly under Votes, together with a note that they can take part online and the resolution that permits it.

The evening: joining means present

At 6:30 pm twelve owners sit in the community room. In Lisbon, Ms Albers opens the portal and clicks twice: Open the video meeting for picture and sound, Join the assembly for her vote. Once she has joined she counts as present, and Mr Engel sees her in the attendance list marked online since 18:31.

Ms Albers also holds the proxy of her brother, who inherited the flat next door. The proxy is recorded like any other, and because Ms Albers is present online, it counts as well. The portal shows her You also vote as proxy for: … and a second ballot on every item.

Mr Engel starts the assembly. From then on the agenda is frozen.

Item by item: opening the vote

At item 3, the special levy for the gutters, Mr Engel clicks Open voting. Only from that moment can the online participants vote on the item. Ms Albers chooses yes and confirms. The portal asks her explicitly first, because a vote once given is final: neither she nor the management can change it afterwards.

Mr Engel records the votes in the room as before. As soon as a vote comes in, from the room or online, the tally under Current count updates live, for him and for the owners in the portal alike. The weighting follows the item's voting rule, per head or by ownership share.

If someone leaves the assembly before an item is closed, their votes on that item no longer count. The room works by the same rule: whoever leaves before the vote does not vote. Ms Albers' connection drops briefly. She rejoins and votes again on item 4.

With Close vote & record Condomana computes the result from the same tally everyone has been watching. Anyone who may no longer vote at the moment of closing is listed by name and not counted.

Afterwards: the assembly log

The Assembly log holds every join and every leave, every opening and closing of an item, and every single vote, each with its time. It is only ever appended to, never changed, and it is attached to the minutes as an appendix.

For the management this log weighs more than the convenience online participation brings the owners. If a resolution is challenged because someone supposedly was not there, the log shows when they joined and when they voted. Like every vote in Condomana, the results land in the resolutions register.

Between assemblies: the circular resolution in the portal

In the autumn the maintenance contract for the gate is due, and Mr Engel opens a circular resolution for it. Every owner with portal access is notified and answers under Votes until the deadline, item by item, with yes, no or abstain. Owners without portal access answer in text form, and Mr Engel records the answer; in the portal it is then marked recorded by the management. Where a unit belongs to several co-owners, they can only vote together.

What Condomana does not do here

Condomana does not replace the video call, and it does not check whether every participant had picture and sound. For the virtual assembly, § 23 (1a) sentence 2 WEG requires online participation to be "comparable to an in-person assembly". Whether it was is for the owners and, in case of doubt, a court to judge. Condomana makes sure every participant can vote in the portal and that how they voted is documented. Whether a resolution is valid is not something the software judges.

The essentials

• No resolution, no online participation: Condomana offers the assembly form only once the community's resolution is linked on the property, and for a virtual assembly it also checks the three quarters and the three years.
• Joining means present, including for proxies an online participant holds.
• The chair opens every item, the tally runs live, and a vote once given is final.
• The assembly log is attached to the minutes and shows who joined, left and voted, and when.
• Circular resolutions are answered by the owners in the portal and land in the same resolutions register.