Condominium Assembly

The Condominium Assembly has essentially deliberative functions.

How many meetings can there be per year?

The assembly must meet during the first fortnight of January of each year to review the previous year's accounts and approve the budget for expenses to be incurred during the year. In addition to this meeting, the administrator or condominium owners representing 25% or more of the value of the building may call extraordinary meetings whenever they wish to raise a topic in the building for discussion.

How are the votes for each condominium counted?

Each condominium owner has as many votes as the total of whole units of the percentage or permilage of all the fractions he owns. For example, if a condominium owner owns a fraction whose value corresponds to 8% of the total value of the building, he has 8 votes out of a total of 100, but if the value of the fraction is 8.6% of the value of the building, he has 86 votes out of a total of 1,000.

How are assemblies called?

Condominium owners must be summoned at least 10 days in advance, by registered letter or by means of a summons made at least 10 days in advance, as long as there is a receipt signed by the condominium owners. The notice must indicate the day, place and agenda of the meeting, as well as the matters for which unanimous votes are required for approval.

How many condominium owners must be present to deliberate?

Normally the assembly begins as long as there is the presence of condominium owners representing more than half of the total number of votes in the building.

At this meeting, deliberations are also taken by a majority of the total number of votes, that is, 51 when the total is 100 and 501 when the total is 1,000.

If a sufficient number of condominium owners do not attend and a different date has not been set in the notice, a new meeting will be considered to have been called for a week later, at the same time and place.

This new assembly can decide by a majority vote of the condominium owners present, as long as they represent at least 1/4 of the total value of the building.

Deliberations that require unanimous votes in the building, as is the case of changing the constitutive title of the horizontal property, can be approved unanimously by the condominium owners present, as long as they represent at least 2/3 of the votes representing the building's capital, subject to approval of the resolution by the absent condominium owners.

What to do about absent condominium owners?

Decisions must be communicated to all absent condominium owners, by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, within 30 days.

Absent condominium owners have 90 days, after receiving the letter, to communicate their agreement or disagreement in writing to the assembly. If they do not respond, it must be understood that they approve the deliberations communicated.

It should be noted that condominium owners who do not normally live in the building must inform the administrator in writing of their address or that of their representative, so that they can be contacted.

How are the assembly’s decisions recorded?

A summary of the assemblies must be made in a specific book intended for this purpose – these are the Assembly Minutes .

The minutes must be written by the administrator or any third party who participated in the meeting and signed by all condominium owners who were present.

They must mention the date and place of the meeting, the agenda contained in the notice, the deliberations of the meeting on that agenda and any other issue of interest to the condominium.

The administrator is responsible for keeping the Minutes Book and showing it whenever a condominium owner or person with an interest in the building asks for it.

How can I complain about an assembly decision?

It may happen that the assembly takes a decision that a condominium owner thinks is against the law or against condominium regulations that have been approved by everyone.

In this case, the condominium owner has 10 days, counting from the deliberation or its communication, to demand that the administrator convene an extraordinary meeting to annul that decision and the administrator must convene it within 20 days.

If the extraordinary meeting does not annul the decision or if the meeting itself does not take place for any reason, the interested co-owner has no other option than to appeal to the court.

Source: Condominium Guide