The first owners' meeting in a new build: what belongs on the agenda

At some point in the first months after moving in, the invitation arrives: the first owners' meeting. Until then you were the buyer of an apartment; from that evening on, you are part of a community that jointly decides about a building. What is resolved in this meeting shapes how the building is run for years. It is therefore the one appointment in a new build for which preparation always pays off.

What belongs on the agenda

A first meeting has more to get done than any later one, because none of it exists yet. You should find these items on the invitation:

• Electing the advisory board (Section 29 of the German Condominium Act, WEG).
• Adopting the budget, the basis for the monthly service charge (Hausgeld) you will be paying from now on.
• Setting the maintenance reserve, at a level someone can actually justify.
• Clarifying the bank account and access rules: where is the community's money held, who may dispose of it, and above which amount is a second approval required?
• Handling defects in the common property: who collects them, who reports them onward, and how regularly is the community informed?
• Adopting the house rules while nobody yet associates them with a conflict.
• The collection of resolutions: who maintains it, and how can owners access it?

Most of this is easier to achieve than it sounds. Since the WEMoG reform, a simple majority is generally enough for resolutions. The hurdle is rarely the legal situation; more often, an item is simply missing from the agenda. If something is missing in your view, raise it with the property management company well before the invitation goes out.

In a new build, the advisory board is not a ceremonial post

The advisory board is often misread as an honorary position. In a young community it is the opposite. It is the counterpart to the property management company, the only body that keeps an eye on it in everyday matters, and it reviews the annual service charge statement before the community votes on it (Section 29 (2) WEG). Especially in a new build, where processes are only just taking shape and everyone involved is new, it helps decide whether questions get asked or not.

Since the WEMoG, the size of the advisory board can be set freely. The community is not tied to a fixed number and can staff the board to suit the building. Make use of that: people with a commercial or construction background are worth more in the first years than any declaration of intent.

Do not skimp on the maintenance reserve

Nowhere in a new build is saving as popular as here, and the argument is always the same: everything is new, after all. That is even true, but only for a while. A new building ages too, and it does so across all components at roughly the same time, because they were installed at the same time. A low reserve looks like a low monthly charge in the first years. It becomes expensive the moment the first larger items come due and the money has to be raised in one go as a special levy.

A property management company that proposes a solid reserve in the first year does not make itself popular. But it is doing exactly what it is there for. How the monthly service charge, the budget and the reserve fit together is explained in our guide on the Hausgeld. Everything else that comes together in a condominium owners' association (WEG), from resolutions to the annual service charge statement, is summarized in our WEG basics guide.