Structural alterations in a WEG: who decides, who pays

The one question that decides everything

When structural alterations (bauliche Veränderungen) come up at an owners’ meeting, people usually argue about the wrong thing. The debate is about whether a measure should happen. What is really being decided is something else: which route it takes. Because that determines who pays.

The German Condominium Act (Wohnungseigentumsgesetz, WEG) — the legal framework for owners’ associations, Germany’s equivalent of an HOA — has two routes:

• Demanding — for five privileged projects, every individual owner has a right to the measure. The association cannot refuse. But that owner pays alone.
• Resolving — everything else is decided by the association by majority. Who pays depends on how clear the majority is and whether the measure pays for itself.

Mix the two up and you either pass a measure that one owner ends up funding alone, or you allocate costs to owners who don’t have to pay them. Both can be challenged in court.

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Route 1: What you can demand

Five projects are privileged (§ 20(2) sentence 1 WEG). If the measure is reasonable, you can demand that the association approves it — and it may not refuse:

No. 1 — Accessibility

Ramp, stairlift, lift, wider doors

No. 2 — E-mobility

Wallbox including the supply line to the parking space

No. 3 — Burglary protection

Burglar-resistant doors and windows, grilles, security locks

No. 4 — Fast internet

Connection to a very high capacity network, such as fibre

No. 5 — Plug-in solar devices

Balcony solar panel (since 17 October 2024)

What the association still decides: how it is carried out. That means cable route, contractor, connection point, design. No longer whether.

There are two limits: the measure must be reasonable (§ 20(2) WEG), and it must not fundamentally transform the property or unfairly disadvantage any owner (§ 20(4) WEG). In practice, both are rarely reached. On 9 February 2024, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) ruled on an external lift at a listed Art Nouveau building and on a ramp, holding that privileged measures are in principle reasonable. They are only unreasonable if they bring disadvantages beyond the typical consequences of such a measure. Interference with the building fabric, normal restrictions on use and visual changes from additions are among those typical consequences (press release on V ZR 244/22 and V ZR 33/23, in German). Notably, the claimants in the lift case were not physically impaired themselves. The right does not depend on whether the owner personally needs the measure. Anyone hoping to block a ramp on aesthetic grounds has poor prospects in court.

If the meeting refuses anyway, the owner can bring an action for a court-substituted resolution (Beschlussersetzungsklage) under § 44 WEG. The court then replaces the resolution. That costs time and money — for the association as much as for the owner.

The price of the right: whoever demands it pays alone (§ 21(1) sentence 1 WEG), and the benefits belong to them alone (sentence 2). This is not an oversight; it is the deliberate trade-off for not needing a majority.

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Route 2: What the association resolves

All other structural alterations — solar PV on the roof, a bike shed, enlarged balconies, a playground, facade insulation beyond what maintenance requires — go through § 20(1) WEG.

The resolution needs a simple majority of the votes cast. Cost allocation follows its own scale:

Case	Requirement	Who pays
Demand	§ 20(2)	only the owner who demanded it
Resolution with double majority	more than 2/3 of the votes cast, which at the same time represent more than 1/2 of all co-ownership shares; costs not disproportionate	everyone, by co-ownership share
Resolution with payback	simple majority; costs are recovered within a reasonable time	everyone, by co-ownership share
Simple majority resolution	simple majority	only those who voted yes

The third row applies less often than many assume. Payback means the measure recovers its costs through savings. Insulation or a more efficient system can do that. A bike shed or a ramp cannot.

Why the second threshold so often fails

The two-thirds threshold refers to the votes cast — abstentions don’t count and so reduce the denominator. The share threshold, by contrast, is absolute: the yes votes must represent more than half of all co-ownership shares (Miteigentumsanteile, MEA) in the association, regardless of who turned up. The statutory wording (“more than two thirds of the votes cast and half of all co-ownership shares”) is mostly read so that “more than” applies to both thresholds. Plan for more than 50 percent, not exactly half.

An example with eleven units and one vote per owner:

Present	Yes / No / Abstain	More than two thirds?	More than half of all shares?	Result
11	8 / 3 / 0	8 of 11 = yes	depends on the shares	usually yes
9	6 / 1 / 2	6 of 7 = yes	depends on the shares	often tight
6	6 / 0 / 0	6 of 6 = yes	six small units = usually no	only the six pay

The third row is typical of poorly attended meetings: the vote threshold is cleared easily, the share threshold is not. If you want to share the cost of a structural alteration among all owners, you need attendance, not just agreement. That is an argument for collecting proxies and for hybrid meetings — and the reason the cost question belongs in the invitation, not in the discussion.

The statutory default is one vote per owner (§ 25(2) WEG). Many community rules (Gemeinschaftsordnung) depart from this and weight votes by share or by unit instead. Check this before any projection.

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The most common mistake: “But everyone uses the ramp”

An owner demands a ramp at the main entrance and pays for it, and the benefits belong to them alone — that is what the law says. But everyone who enters the building walks over a ramp at the main entrance. No one can be physically excluded.

This is not a contradiction; it is a question of what that allocation means. Here it serves mainly to settle costs:

• The other owners pay nothing because they didn’t claim anything. That they use it too is a side effect, not a right.
• They cannot derive any claim to its maintenance or renewal from it.
• Nor can they demand that the ramp be removed because they “have to use it”.

What the law does not provide is for the paying owner to stop others from walking over it. For measures that can’t be separated, exclusivity is effectively meaningless.

The practical consequence: for ramps, lifts and similar measures that visibly benefit everyone, it is almost always worth not using the individual right, and instead passing a resolution under § 20(1) with a fair cost arrangement.

The limit: the association can allocate costs differently (§ 21(5) WEG), but it cannot impose costs on anyone who would not have to pay under the statute. Sharing costs among everyone therefore requires the double majority — payback is not an option for a ramp — or the express agreement of the other owners to contribute. Organising that majority in advance is the route that keeps neighbours on good terms.

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Fibre: the special case that usually isn’t one

No. 4 is in the statute but rarely comes into play, because the network operator usually builds the connection itself. Once its pre-marketing quota is reached, it installs the building connection and riser cabling at its own expense. The connection usually remains its property and does not become part of the common property.

Legally, the association resolves the structural alteration under § 20(1) WEG and signs a permission agreement (Gestattungsvertrag) with the network operator — a simple majority is enough, and § 21 does not apply because the association incurs no costs. In addition, under § 134 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG), the property owner cannot prohibit the connection of the building to a very high capacity network, as long as the property is not unreasonably impaired by it (§ 134(1) TKG).

What to watch for in the permission agreement: term and exclusivity. Twenty years of exclusive supply is not a law of nature.

It is different if the network operator builds the fibre network inside the building and charges the owner a fibre provision fee (Glasfaserbereitstellungsentgelt) for it (§ 72 TKG). The fee is capped: at most €60 per residential unit per year, charged for up to five years — so normally no more than €300 in total. If that is not enough to recover the costs, the period can be extended to up to nine years and the total to up to €540; the operator must then justify the additional costs. Owners who let their unit can pass the fee on to tenants as service charges under the conditions of § 556(3a) of the German Civil Code (BGB). The rule currently runs until the end of 2027.

As of October 2026, the government’s draft of a 2026 amendment to the TKG is going through parliament. Among other things, it provides for a higher provision fee. Check what applies before signing a contract.

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The financing trap

The costs of a structural alteration should not be paid from the maintenance reserve (Erhaltungsrücklage). The reserve is earmarked for maintenance, not modernisation. With resolutions under § 21(3) WEG there is a further problem: all owners have paid into the reserve, but only those who voted yes may bear the costs. Whether drawing on the reserve is permissible with a double majority is assessed inconsistently in the legal commentary. We take the safe route.

This is the most common error in motions on structural alterations. The measure is financed by a special levy (Sonderumlage) or a loan to the association — and that belongs in the same resolution as the measure. Otherwise the project is approved and the money is missing. In our WEG management, we therefore prepare the decision on the measure and the decision on costs together with the financing.

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Check before the meeting

The second-to-last point is where most resolutions later fail. Approving a measure and leaving the costs open only postpones the dispute to the annual statement — by then with a deadline to challenge and legal fees.

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Age-appropriate conversions in practice

Many measures under § 20(2) no. 1 come about under time pressure. After a fall, after a diagnosis, after a hospital discharge with a recognised care level (Pflegegrad). Then the ramp has to be in place within four weeks, and the next ordinary owners’ meeting is in May.

What helps in these cases is not a legal trick but preparation:

• Put it on the agenda early. Accessibility is rarely a surprise. In buildings with an older population, the question belongs on the agenda before the first urgent request comes in.
• Clarify the design beforehand. The dispute is almost never about whether, but about location, dimensions and appearance. Bringing two vetted design options to the meeting shortens the discussion considerably.
• Keep the cost question separate. The better solution is almost always a joint resolution with an adjusted cost key — not the individual right with sole financing.
• Check funding before awarding the contract. The state development bank KfW supports barrier reduction through its investment grant 455-B (page in German) — but only while federal funds are available. The 2026 budget was fully committed at the end of July, and since then KfW has not accepted new applications (in German). Whether grants return in 2027 depends on the federal budget. The subsidised KfW loan 159 remains available; apply before the project starts. With a recognised care level, the long-term care insurance fund (Pflegekasse) pays up to €4,180 per measure for home adaptations under § 40(4) SGB XI. Submit that application before awarding the contract as well.

Alongside owners’ associations, we also take on properties with ongoing care operations, such as care homes and social service providers. We assess the technical side of age-appropriate adaptations — gradients, thresholds, door widths, lighting, handrails — as part of our technical management, before a design goes to the owners’ meeting. We do the initial assessment ourselves: our managing director is a mechanical engineer.

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Ravenica prepares resolutions on structural alterations with separate decisions on the measure and on costs — including a check of the voting principle and the achievable share majority before the invitation goes out.