Challenging a resolution of a German owners association

Two periods run from the day an owners resolution is passed: one month to bring the court action, two months to substantiate it (§ 45 sentence 1 WEG). The defendant is the association of owners, not individual owners (§ 44 (2) sentence 1 WEG). The Amtsgericht (local court) for the property’s district has exclusive jurisdiction.

A resolution binds the owners who voted against it and those who stayed away. Anyone unwilling to accept it has one month, and that month runs from the resolution passed at the meeting, not from the day the minutes land in the letterbox. This guide sets out which defects are subject to a deadline at all, how the two periods fall in the calendar, who is sued, which court decides, what the case costs and what a challenge cannot achieve. How resolutions come into being and when they become final is covered in our guide to WEG resolutions, the course of the meeting itself in the guide to the owners meeting.

Voidable or void: what decides whether a deadline applies

The WEG knows two categories of defective resolution, and only one of them is under time pressure. A resolution that infringes a rule of law compliance with which cannot validly be waived is void (§ 23 (4) sentence 1 WEG). Otherwise a resolution is valid as long as it has not been declared invalid by a final judgment (§ 23 (4) sentence 2 WEG). The second group is by far the larger one in practice, and attacking it requires a judgment, which is what the one-month period is for.

Each group has its own form of action. The court may, on the action of an owner, declare a resolution invalid (Anfechtungsklage) or establish its nullity (Nichtigkeitsklage), and where a necessary resolution has not been passed it may pass the resolution itself on the action of an owner (Beschlussersetzungsklage, § 44 (1) WEG). A period is set expressly in § 45 sentence 1 WEG for the challenge alone. For the action to establish nullity the statute names none.

That is no reason to take one’s time. Whether a defect leads to nullity or only to voidability turns on whether compliance with the infringed rule could validly have been waived. In an individual case that classification is the hardest question in the whole matter, and it arises at the beginning rather than at the end. An owner who answers it wrongly and lets the month run out is left with the resolution for good. The safe response to a doubtful resolution is therefore to file the challenge in time, even where nullity is also in play.

The one-month period and the two-month period

The wording is short and contains two periods: the action must be brought within one month of the resolution being passed and substantiated within two months of the resolution being passed (§ 45 sentence 1 WEG). The second figure is regularly misread. The period for the reasons does not run from the filing of the claim; it too runs from the resolution. An owner who files on the last day of the first month has one month left for the reasons, not two.

The calculation follows the general rules of the BGB, because the interpretation provisions of §§ 187 to 193 BGB apply to time limits laid down in statutes (§ 186 BGB). The day of the meeting is not counted (§ 187 (1) BGB), and a period fixed in months ends on expiry of the day in the following month whose number corresponds to the day of the resolution (§ 188 (2) BGB).

The February dates assume a year without a leap day. The second and third rows show the special case: where the month in which a monthly period would expire has no corresponding day, the period ends on expiry of the last day of that month (§ 188 (3) BGB). Where the last day falls on a Sunday, a Saturday or a general public holiday, the period ends on expiry of the next working day (§ 222 (2) ZPO; for the calculation as such § 222 (1) ZPO refers back to the BGB, and § 193 BGB provides the same).

What counts in every case is the resolution, meaning the meeting at which the result was announced. When the minutes arrive is irrelevant to the running of the period. That is where the rule bites: minutes have to be taken without undue delay (§ 24 (6) sentence 1 WEG), the statute names no number of days for them, and in practice two to four weeks pass. An owner who starts thinking about it only with the minutes in hand often has days rather than weeks. How quickly the minutes must be available, and what to do about minutes that are wrong, is set out in our guide to the minutes of an owners meeting. For resolutions passed without a meeting the statute names no different starting point.

An action is brought only when it is served

The word brought in § 45 sentence 1 WEG carries a fixed procedural meaning: an action is brought by service of a written pleading, the statement of claim (§ 253 (1) ZPO). Filed is not served, and at the court days or weeks can pass between the two. Without a special rule the one-month period would be lost to anyone who did not allow several weeks of lead time.

§ 167 ZPO closes that gap. Where service is to preserve a time limit, that effect arises already when the application or declaration is received, provided that service then follows shortly. What matters is therefore the arrival at court, subject to one condition the claimant controls: the claim should be served only once the fee for the proceedings in general has been paid (§ 12 (1) sentence 1 GKG). An owner who transfers the court fee advance only after a reminder risks service no longer counting as following shortly.

In practice that means filing the claim and instructing the transfer at the same time, rather than waiting for the fee note. A buffer of a few days before the calculated deadline also catches an error in working the dates out.

What the statement of reasons has to do

That the action must be substantiated within two months is in the statute. What the reasons have to contain is not: § 45 WEG sets out no requirements as to content, and the WEG contains no other provision on the point.

It follows from the purpose of a period for reasons that the facts on which the claimant bases the invalidity should be set out within those two months. An owner who produces a ground of challenge later must reckon with it no longer being taken into account. That is the reading that matches the purpose of the period; the statute itself says nothing about it. For practice it means naming every recognisable ground within the two months rather than relying on the strongest one.

In substance most sets of reasons aim at one of two targets. Either the procedure was defective, for instance because the subject matter was not designated when the meeting was convened, which § 23 (2) WEG requires for a resolution to be valid. Or the resolution does not correspond to proper administration (ordnungsmäßige Verwaltung) in substance. Which defects fall into which group is set out in our guide to WEG resolutions.

Who is sued: the association, not the neighbours

The actions must be brought against the association of owners, the Gemeinschaft der Wohnungseigentümer (§ 44 (2) sentence 1 WEG). The defendant is therefore the association as such, not the manager and not the neighbour who tabled the motion. An action against the other owners personally is directed at the wrong party.

The other owners are affected all the same, because the judgment has effect for and against all owners even if they are not parties (§ 44 (3) WEG). So that they learn of it, the statute puts the manager under a duty: the manager must inform the owners of the action without undue delay (§ 44 (2) sentence 2 WEG). A joinder of the other owners by the court is not provided for in the WEG.

An owner who wants to join one side may do so as an intervener, but carries a risk in doing so: costs caused by an intervention count as necessary for the appropriate defence within the meaning of § 91 ZPO only where the intervention was called for (§ 44 (4) WEG). An owner who joins with a lawyer of their own without need pays that bill personally, even where their side wins.

One feature of this arrangement is easily overlooked. The claimant is suing an association of which they are a member. The costs the association incurs in defending itself are costs of the association, and every owner bears them in proportion to their share (§ 16 (2) sentence 1 WEG). Even a successful claimant therefore carries a fraction of the costs that arose on the other side.

The competent court and the course of the case

Exclusive jurisdiction lies with the court in whose district the property is situated, among other things for resolution actions under § 44 WEG (§ 43 (2) no. 4 WEG). Which court that is follows from the Courts Constitution Act: disputes under § 43 (2) WEG go to the local courts (Amtsgerichte) irrespective of the value in dispute, and that jurisdiction is exclusive (§ 23 no. 2 (c) GVG). For a property in Frankfurt am Main the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main therefore decides, even where the resolution concerns a refurbishment costing several hundred thousand euros. The jurisdiction cannot be moved by agreement.

From there the case follows the ordinary rules of civil procedure. The statement of claim is served on the association, the defence follows, as a rule there is an oral hearing, and then comes the judgment. No duration is prescribed, and it depends on the court’s workload and on how much evidence is taken. Reckoning with a year up to the first-instance judgment is realistic; that figure comes from experience and is not a statutory one.

The fact that a case is running changes nothing about the legal position in the meantime. The resolution under attack remains valid as long as it has not been declared invalid by a final judgment (§ 23 (4) sentence 2 WEG). The challenge has to be noted in the resolution record (§ 24 (7) sentence 4 WEG), so that later readers can see the matter is pending.

What a challenge costs

The losing party bears the costs of the litigation and must in particular reimburse the costs incurred by the opponent, to the extent that they were necessary for the appropriate pursuit or defence of the case (§ 91 (1) sentence 1 ZPO). The exposure therefore consists of three blocks: the court fees, the claimant’s own lawyer and the association’s lawyer.

How large those blocks are depends on the value in dispute, and in condominium matters that value follows a rule of its own. The value in dispute in proceedings under § 44 (1) WEG is set at the interest of all owners in the decision; it may not exceed seven and a half times the interest of the claimant and of those joining on the claimant side, nor the market value of their unit (§ 49 GKG). The starting point is thus not the claimant’s own share but the interest of the whole association, capped by seven and a half times the claimant’s own interest and by the value of the claimant’s flat. An owner attacking a refurbishment resolution worth 200,000 euros while carrying four per cent of it does not end up at a value of 8,000 euros but at the cap of 60,000 euros, provided the flat is worth at least that much.

The table below works through the first instance with one lawyer on each side. It applies the procedural fee of 1.3 and the hearing fee of 1.2 (nos. 3100 and 3104 VV RVG), the flat-rate expenses of at most 20 euros (no. 7002 VV RVG) and value added tax (no. 7008 VV RVG) at the standard rate of 19 per cent (§ 12 (1) UStG), plus the court fee for the proceedings in general at a rate of 3.0 (no. 1210 KV GKG). The underlying figures come from Anlage 2 GKG and Anlage 2 RVG.

These figures are the floor for a normal case. Taking evidence from an expert, a second instance or a lawyer working on a fee agreement above the statutory rates all push them up. Conversely the court fee drops from 3.0 to 1.0 where the case ends in a settlement before the court or in a withdrawal made in time; no. 1211 KV GKG ties the reduction to that timing and excludes it once a contested judgment or a judgment in default has been given. Whether a legal expenses insurer covers condominium matters is a question for the policy wording, and one to settle before filing rather than after.

On top of that exposure comes the share of the costs the association incurs in defending itself, which every owner bears in proportion to their share (§ 16 (2) sentence 1 WEG). What that share is follows from the ratio of co-ownership shares (Miteigentumsanteile) entered in the land register (§ 16 (1) sentence 2 WEG), not from the number of units. An owner holding five per cent of the co-ownership shares carries five per cent of those costs; an owner holding a quarter carries a quarter. The owners may, however, resolve a different allocation for individual items of cost (§ 16 (2) sentence 2 WEG).

What a challenge does not achieve

It does not stop the resolution. The WEG gives the challenge no suspensive effect, and the resolution remains valid as long as it has not been declared invalid by a final judgment (§ 23 (4) sentence 2 WEG). A special levy that has been resolved therefore falls due, and the management may place an order that has been resolved. Stopping either requires more than the challenge.

It does not replace a resolution. The court declares the resolution under attack invalid and no more. What the association should decide instead is again a matter for the meeting. Only where a necessary resolution has not been passed does the statute open a separate route, on which the court passes the resolution itself (§ 44 (1) sentence 2 WEG).

It does not correct the minutes. What is challenged is the resolution, not the record. For a dispute about the wording of the minutes the challenge is the wrong instrument, and such a dispute does not suspend the period either.

And it does not replace attending the meeting. A motion drafted unclearly, a subject matter that was never announced or a voting result nobody added up can be settled at the meeting with a question, and afterwards only with a claim.

Challenging resolutions in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region

The WEG is federal law, and a resolution in Bad Homburg is subject to the same periods as one in Offenbach or Eschborn. What differs is the competent local court, since what counts is the district in which the property is situated (§ 43 (2) WEG together with § 23 no. 2 (c) GVG). A resolution of an association in Offenbach is dealt with by the Amtsgericht Offenbach am Main, and the claimant’s own place of residence makes no difference.

In Frankfurt the share of owners living elsewhere weighs most heavily in practice. An owner letting a flat from Munich or Singapore learns of a resolution only with the minutes, while the month keeps running. In our condominium management in Frankfurt the minutes therefore go out digitally to every owner with an address on file, and the draft is written on the day of the meeting. No statutory duty requires that; it is the way to make the period genuinely usable for every owner. What else marks out careful management is set out under certified property management.

Editorial responsibility: digo.immo Verwaltung & Invest - certified residential property manager under § 26a WEG (IHK Frankfurt), licence under § 34c GewO. About the certification

This article provides general information only and does not replace individual legal advice. It was created with AI assistance; the legal statements have been checked against the official texts of the law. Legal status: 12/10/2026; laws and case law may change. No warranty is given as to completeness, accuracy or timeliness. When in doubt, please seek qualified advice.