Ask first, decide later: surveys before the owners' assembly

Katrin Vogt manages the association at Bergstraße 7 in Leipzig: sixteen units and twenty-one owners, because several flats belong to married couples and one to a community of three heirs. In the autumn two owners asked about charging points in the underground car park, one owner has been complaining about the bicycle racks in the courtyard for months, and the assembly in March has no date yet.

In the past Ms Vogt would have put all three topics on the agenda and seen what happened on the evening. This time she asks the owners in January, with a survey in the portal.

A survey decides nothing

A survey is an opinion poll. What it returns does not bind the association and never reaches the resolutions register. Condomana says so on the manager's survey pages and above every survey in the portal, so that no owner mistakes their answer for a vote.

German law is part of the reason. Under § 23 (3) WEG a resolution without a meeting is valid only if every owner declares their consent in text form, or by majority if the association has resolved beforehand that a majority suffices for that particular matter. Condomana has the circular resolution for that. A survey does not replace it.

Counting differs as well. At the assembly, several owners of one unit can only cast their vote jointly (§ 25 (2) WEG), and depending on the community's rules either heads or ownership shares count. In a survey every person answers for themselves and every answer counts the same. The couple on the second floor therefore give two answers, and a large flat weighs no more than a small one. For an opinion poll that is fine. Anyone who wants to read a majority at the assembly into the result should keep it in mind.

Setting up the survey

Under Communication & filing → Surveys, Ms Vogt creates a draft with New survey. She gives it a title and an introduction, picks the audience and sets Answers until to 31 January. That day itself still belongs to the respondents.

There are two audiences: Owners only, or Owners and residents, which adds the current tenants of the units. Tenants would have something to say about the bicycle racks, since they park their bikes there. Because the survey also asks about the assembly date, Ms Vogt limits it to owners.

She writes the questions on the survey's own page, each in its own form. There are three types: Single choice, Multiple choice and Free text. A question with options needs at least two and at most twenty of them, and any question can be marked as required. Her survey has four questions:

The order of the questions can be changed as long as the survey is a draft. Nobody in the portal sees it at this stage.

Anonymous or named

Before publishing, Ms Vogt decides whether the survey is anonymous. In an anonymous survey Condomana stores the answers with no link to the person at all: no name, no time, and a random key. All it records is that someone has answered, so that nobody answers twice and the response rate is right. An anonymous answer cannot be changed once sent, and the form says so above the button.

In a named survey the practice sees who has answered, and everyone can change their answer until the deadline. That would suit the question about dates. On the bicycle racks, though, Ms Vogt suspects some owners will speak more freely without their name attached. She chooses anonymous.

Publish freezes the questions. The audience, anonymity, deadline and questions can no longer be changed afterwards, because answers would otherwise be counted against a question that no longer exists in that form. Owners with portal access are notified the way they set it in their profile and find the survey in the portal under Surveys.

Owners outside the portal are not asked

Seventeen of the twenty-one owners at Bergstraße have a portal account. The other four cannot answer the survey, and the practice has no way to record an answer given by letter or on the phone.

The response rate still counts all twenty-one, because the survey is put to every current owner. That is more honest than counting only portal users: the rate shows how much of the association stands behind the result. Ms Vogt uses the survey as a reason to invite the four into the portal once more. How invitations and reminders work is covered in Taking over a building from the previous manager.

Reading the results

Ms Vogt sees the results on the survey's page as soon as the first answers arrive. On 1 February fourteen of twenty-one have answered, a response rate of 67 per cent.

For each question Condomana shows how many people answered it, and for each option the count and its share of those answers. On the charging points there are six Yes, four Maybe and four No. Free-text answers appear in alphabetical order, so their order gives nothing away about who answered when. Two owners would like the rise in heating costs explained, and one asks about the state of the gutters.

With Export CSV she takes the figures into her papers for the assembly. A survey whose question has been settled can be ended before the deadline with Close survey. If she shares the results with respondents, everyone who answered sees the figures in the portal once the survey has ended.

From opinion poll to agenda item

What Ms Vogt makes of the survey is her decision; Condomana carries nothing over into the assembly. She sets the assembly for the Tuesday that received the most votes. The charging points go on the agenda with a proposed resolution to obtain a quote for preparing the cabling, because six Yes and four Maybe make a majority look possible. The heating costs get an item for information, without a resolution.

These decisions have to be made before the invitation goes out. Under § 23 (2) WEG, a resolution is valid only if its subject was identified when the assembly was convened. A topic that first comes up on the evening can be discussed, but the assembly should not resolve on it then. A survey four to six weeks before the invitation leaves enough time to word the items properly.

What happens next, from the agenda to the resolutions register, is described in Assembly season.

The essentials

• A survey is a non-binding opinion poll. Resolutions are passed by the assembly, or by a circular resolution under § 23 (3) WEG.
• In a survey every person counts once and without weighting, unlike in a vote.
• Anonymous means no link between person and answer, and no change after sending. Named answers can be changed until the deadline.
• Only owners in the portal can answer. The response rate counts all owners and so shows how much of the association stands behind the result.