Eigentümerversammlung: the WEG owners' meeting — procedure, deadlines and virtual attendance

Who calls the meeting — and when?

The property manager (Verwalter) is responsible — under WEG management, calling, running and minuting the meeting are part of the base fee. The manager must call a meeting at least once a year (§ 24 WEG). There are two further triggers:

• Request by the owners: More than a quarter of the owners can demand a meeting, in text form, stating the purpose and the reasons (§ 24(2) WEG).
• Substitute call: If there is no manager, or the manager refuses in breach of duty, the meeting can be called by the chair of the advisory board (Verwaltungsbeirat), the chair's deputy, or an owner authorised by resolution (§ 24(3) WEG).

The invitation is sent in text form — email is enough if the address is known. The notice period (Ladungsfrist) should be at least three weeks, except in cases of particular urgency. According to the prevailing view, what counts is when the invitation is received, not when it is sent — calculating it too tightly creates grounds for a challenge.

The agenda

Every item to be voted on must be described clearly enough for an owner to see what is being decided and whether it is worth attending. "Any other business" is not a valid item for resolutions. Motions from individual owners belong on the agenda if they arrive in time.

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How the meeting runs

Step	Content
1. Opening	Confirmation that the meeting was properly called, election of the chair (usually the manager)
2. Attendance	Attendance list, checking proxies, establishing voting shares
3. Reports	Manager's report on the past year, report of the advisory board
4. Annual statement	Annual statement (Jahresabrechnung), resolution on additional payments or adjusted advance payments
5. Discharge	Discharge (Entlastung) of the manager and the advisory board (vote separately)
6. Budget	Budget (Wirtschaftsplan): resolution on the advance payments for the current year
7. Substantive items	Maintenance work, structural alterations, contracts, special levies (Sonderumlagen)
8. Manager appointment	If due: appointment, contract, fees
9. Close	Suggestions without resolutions, date of the next meeting

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Voting rights, majorities, proxies

The statutory default is one vote per owner: each owner has one vote, regardless of the size of their unit (§ 25(2) WEG). Several owners of one unit share a single vote. A great many community rules depart from this and provide for votes by co-ownership share or one vote per unit instead. The community rules always decide — check them before you assess the balance of votes.

Majorities at a glance:

Matter	Majority required
Standard case (annual statement, budget, maintenance, appointing the manager)	simple majority of the votes cast
Structural alteration (resolution)	simple majority of the votes cast
Structural alteration whose costs all owners bear	more than two thirds of the votes cast and half of all co-ownership shares — or regardless of the majority if the costs pay for themselves within a reasonable period (§ 21(2) WEG)
Privileged structural alteration (§ 20(2) WEG)	an individual owner's entitlement; the owners' association only decides how it is carried out
Hybrid meeting (joining online)	simple majority of the votes cast
Fully virtual meeting	at least three quarters of the votes cast
Amending the community rules	in principle an agreement of all owners, unless there is an opening clause

Proxies (Vollmacht): If you cannot attend, you can be represented. The community rules may restrict who can act as proxy — often to the manager, spouses or other owners. By law, text form is required, and an email is enough (§ 25(3) WEG). Older community rules sometimes demand written form with a signature; whether that still applies alongside the new law has not been conclusively settled. When in doubt, sign.

Exclusion from voting: An owner may not vote on a legal transaction with themselves, on starting or settling legal proceedings against them, or if they have been finally ordered to sell their unit under § 17 WEG (§ 25(4) WEG).

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Hybrid and virtual: the current legal position

Hybrid meetings. The owners can resolve that participation by video or phone is possible (§ 23(1) sentence 2 WEG). The in-person meeting remains the anchor; joining remotely is an additional way in. A simple majority is enough.

Fully virtual meetings. Since 17 October 2024, the owners' association can resolve with at least three quarters of the votes cast that meetings take place online only (§ 23(1a) WEG). The resolution is valid for no more than three years from the date it is passed; after that, a new resolution is needed. The virtual meeting must be comparable to an in-person meeting in terms of attendance and the exercise of rights.

The transitional rule in § 48(6) WEG: a owners' association that passes such a resolution before 1 January 2028 must hold at least one in-person meeting per year up to and including 2028, unless the owners unanimously waive this. A breach, however, makes the resolutions passed in virtual meetings neither void nor open to challenge.

What is technically required: Participants must be able to follow the meeting in real time, ask to speak and vote. In practice that means a stable video conference, an orderly way of requesting the floor, documented voting and identity checks on entry. GDPR-compliant solutions with servers in the EU are the obvious choice for owners' meetings.

What hybrid meetings achieve in practice: In the region, a noticeable share of owners are investors who do not live locally — in properties around the Siemens Campus in Erlangen or in student areas of Nuremberg, often the majority. The option to join remotely raises participation considerably and prevents resolutions from being carried by a small group in the room.

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After the meeting: minutes and the resolutions register

The minutes (Niederschrift or Protokoll) must be prepared without undue delay. They are signed by the chair of the meeting, one owner and — if there is an advisory board — its chair or deputy (§ 24(6) WEG). Every owner can ask to inspect them.

The resolutions register (Beschluss-Sammlung) under § 24(7) WEG must be kept continuously: all resolutions with date and wording, plus court decisions in resolution disputes, each noting whether a resolution was challenged or revoked. It matters every time a flat is sold — the buyer steps into the existing body of resolutions. An incomplete register holds up the buyer's due diligence and financing — and it is one of the first things that come to light when you change your property manager.

Challenge deadline: One month from the vote to file suit, two months to state the grounds (§ 45 WEG). The deadline runs from the meeting, not from receipt of the minutes. If you wait for the minutes, you lose valuable time. The challenge deadline calculator gives you the exact deadline for your meeting date.

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Ravenica runs owners' meetings in hybrid form — with video participation via a GDPR-compliant platform hosted in Germany.