Special levies: resolve, apportion, keep track of payments

The association at Parkstraße 9 has twelve units and a flat roof from the 1980s. After a wet autumn, water drips into two top-floor flats. The roofer puts the repair at €64,000, and the maintenance reserve holds €38,000. The manager, Ms Albers, proposes taking €30,000 from the reserve and raising €34,000 as a special levy (Sonderumlage), so that something is left for the rest of the building.

Up to here it is arithmetic. It gets difficult in three places: when the resolution leaves open who pays how much and when, when the apportionment is a few cents out, and when six months later nobody is quite sure who has paid.

The legal background

A special levy is an additional advance payment on top of the monthly contributions from the economic plan. The owners resolve on it under § 28 (1) sentence 1 WEG, which governs resolutions on advance payments towards costs and towards reserves. A majority of the votes cast is enough (§ 25 (1) WEG).

Under § 16 (2) sentence 1 WEG, costs are shared in proportion to the co-ownership shares (Miteigentumsanteile) unless something else has been agreed or resolved. Under § 16 (2) sentence 2 WEG the owners can resolve on a different allocation for individual costs or certain types of cost. If your community regulations say something specific about the roof, that applies.

The assembly resolves separately on the repair itself and on the withdrawal from the maintenance reserve. For the levy resolution, practice has shown it pays to name four things: the purpose, the total, the distribution key and the due date, with every date if it is paid in instalments. Then every owner can work out their own share, and you will not have to interpret anything later.

If a unit is sold while the levy is running, the courts look at when an amount falls due: whoever owns the unit at that point owes it. Clear due dates in the resolution save a lot of argument here.

Before the assembly: computing the draft

In Condomana special levies sit under Economic plans & levies, just below the economic plans. With New levy you enter the purpose, the amount, the distribution key and a date, then Compute draft levy.

Ms Albers enters "Flat roof repair", €34,000, key co-ownership shares. Under Details the table then shows each unit with its share and its amount. The amounts add up to the cent, even though €34,000 does not divide evenly by the shares. Condomana distributes the rounding remainder by the largest-remainder method, so the sum of the individual amounts always equals the total exactly.

You can choose any key you have set up for the property: ownership shares, equal per unit, area, persons or custom shares. If a key has no values at all yet, Condomana does not compute and says so. If only one unit lacks a value, that unit gets €0, so go through the table line by line.

Two owners want to discuss an allocation by floor area at the assembly, so Ms Albers computes a second draft with the area key. She copies both tables into the invitation, and the assembly decides on figures everyone has seen beforehand. A draft you no longer need, you delete.

The purpose later appears on every receipt as "Special levy: Flat roof repair". Choose it so that an owner can still place it two years from now.

At the assembly

The agenda item gets its voting rule, per head or by co-ownership share, according to what applies in your association. Once you vote and close the item, Condomana computes the majority, and the resolution goes into the resolutions register. How an assembly runs in Condomana overall is described in Assembly season: from the agenda to the entry in the resolutions register.

Parkstraße 9 stays with co-ownership shares, payable in two instalments on 1 February and 1 May. If the assembly changes the amount, you delete the draft and compute it again with the amount resolved.

After the resolution: approving

Once the draft matches the resolution, click Approve. The confirmation says what happens: the levy records the owners' assembly decision and becomes permanently immutable. On approval Condomana computes the apportionment once more with the key as it stands then. If you corrected shares in the key between draft and approval, check the table against the minutes afterwards.

The levy does not store due dates or instalments. Those are in the resolution and in your letter to the owners.

Telling owners their amount

Only the management sees the apportionment table. The levy does not appear in the owner portal on its own. Each owner therefore needs a letter with their amount, the due dates and the bank details. With document distribution you can file it so that only the owners of that unit see it, or you send it on paper.

Recording payments

When money arrives, you record it under Payments & receipts with Record payment: the unit, who paid, the amount, the date received, the payment method, and under For you choose Special levy and the approved levy. A reference, such as the one on the bank statement, and a note for the receipt are optional.

On saving, Condomana issues a numbered receipt and files it in the owner's portal, and the owner is notified. Condomana accepts as payer only someone who owned the unit on the day the money came in. If at Parkstraße 9 the seller of flat 5 pays the first instalment and the buyer the second, that is how it appears in the payments. With instalments you record each payment separately. A payment entered by mistake is cancelled; the receipt number stays used, and the owner receives a notice of the cancellation.

Who has not paid yet

Condomana does not keep a list of open items per levy. To find out whether all twelve units have paid both instalments, compare the recorded payments with the apportionment table, or check your accounting. You send reminders to anyone in arrears yourself.

What Condomana does not do here

Condomana does not collect money: no direct debit, no bank import, no dunning. The levy has no due date and is not linked to the entry in the resolutions register. Whether a different distribution key is permissible for your association is a matter for the community regulations and the resolution.

The essentials

• A special levy is an additional advance payment under § 28 (1) sentence 1 WEG. It is shared by co-ownership shares unless something else applies (§ 16 (2) WEG).
• A good resolution names purpose, total, key and due dates.
• Compute the draft before the assembly, so owners get the amount per unit with the invitation.
• Once approved, the apportionment cannot change and adds up to the cent.
• You record each payment separately, and the owner gets a receipt in the portal.