Every second property management company offers an online portal, but only one in twelve offers virtual owners' meetings

The owners' meeting is the one appointment each year at which a condominium owners' association (WEG) actually makes decisions: on maintenance, on the budget, on the property management itself. Anyone who cannot attend is left out. So it would seem obvious to start right here when a property management company wants to digitize. Yet that is exactly what happens least often.

What our analysis shows

We analyzed which digital services the property management companies in our directory state on their own websites. The pattern is clear:

• An online portal for owners is offered by every second company.
• Online damage reporting is mentioned by one in five.
• A dedicated app is offered by one in eight.
• A virtual or hybrid owners' meeting is offered by only one in twelve.

For context: we evaluate what a company itself states publicly. A company that allows remote participation in individual cases but does not put it on its website does not appear in this figure. The gap between the portal and the meeting, however, is so large that it cannot be a mere matter of presentation.

The portal is the easy part

An owners' portal is bought and set up. The property management company licenses a piece of software, uploads minutes, statements and budgets, and hands out login credentials. For the owners, what changes above all is where the documents are stored. The way the company works does not change, and that is precisely why so many have one.

Opening up the meeting digitally is a different matter. It takes technology in the room, someone to operate it, rules for voting and for verifying remote participants, and a property management company willing to run its most important appointment differently than before. That is not a purchase, it is a change of process. Which is why, for most companies, digitization ends at the login screen.

More would be possible: since October 2024, a community can resolve with a three-quarters majority that its meetings are held entirely virtually (Section 23 of the German Condominium Act, WEG). Until the end of 2028, an in-person meeting must still be offered at least once a year unless all owners waive it. Which majorities are needed for which resolution is explained in our guide WEG and the law.

What this means for your selection

In practice, the hybrid meeting is the more interesting case: meeting on site while connecting everyone who cannot come. That affects more owners than you might think. Landlords who live at the other end of the country, working owners who do not want to take a day off for a two-hour meeting, owners who struggle to walk: for all of them, remote access decides whether they have a say. Resolutions get passed either way, just without their votes.

If this matters to you, ask specifically in the selection interview:

• Have you ever held a hybrid meeting, and how often in the past year?
• Who operates the technology on site?
• How does voting work for remote participants?
• What happens if a connection drops in the middle of a vote?

The last question separates reliably: whoever can answer it has done it. That is exactly where the value of this feature lies. It is harder to claim than a portal, and a property management company that opens up its meetings has taken on the effort that most others avoid. Everything else that comes together in an owners' association is summarized in our WEG basics guide.

Basis: our own analysis of the information published on the websites of the property management companies in our directory, as of February 2026.