Minutes of a German owners meeting and the resolution record

Minutes (Niederschrift) of the resolutions passed at the meeting must be taken without undue delay (§ 24 (6) WEG). The resolutions themselves are the minimum content; the statute asks for nothing more. The chair, one owner and, where an advisory board exists, its chair or deputy have to sign. No number of days is given.

The minutes are the memory of the community. Anyone who wants to know what was resolved about the facade three years ago looks them up, and anyone who wants to attack a resolution needs its wording first. This guide sets out what belongs in the minutes, who signs them, when they must be available, how they differ from the resolution record (Beschluss-Sammlung) and what to do about minutes that are wrong. The course of the meeting itself is covered in our guide to the owners meeting, its preparation in the guide to the notice of an owners meeting.

What belongs in the minutes

The wording of the statute is short. Minutes of the resolutions passed at the meeting must be taken without undue delay (§ 24 (6) sentence 1 WEG). That settles the minimum content: every resolution the meeting passed has to appear in the minutes. What else is to be recorded is not regulated. There is no list of mandatory particulars, no prescribed structure and no form requirement for the text.

What a workable set of minutes has to achieve follows from their purpose. A reader who was not present should be able to see which resolution came about with which content. The list below is therefore management practice and not statutory wording:

• The place, the day and the opening and closing times of the meeting.
• The confirmation that the meeting was properly convened.
• The votes present and the votes represented.
• The wording of the motion put to the vote for each agenda item.
• The result with votes in favour, votes against and abstentions.
• The confirmation that the chair announced the result.

The wording of the resolution is the part on which everything later depends. Minutes that merely note that the motion was carried are worthless as soon as somebody asks what exactly was carried. Where a motion is amended during the meeting, the version resolved belongs in the minutes, not the version from the invitation.

For resolutions passed without a meeting § 24 (6) WEG does not apply, because the provision presupposes a meeting. A resolution passed by circular procedure (Umlaufverfahren) therefore needs no minutes. It belongs in the resolution record all the same: under § 24 (7) sentence 2 no. 2 WEG the record also takes in the resolutions passed in writing, with the place and date of their announcement. How such resolutions come about is set out in our guide to WEG resolutions.

Who has to sign

The minutes must be signed by the chair of the meeting and by one owner and, if an advisory board (Verwaltungsbeirat) has been appointed, also by its chair or the deputy chair (§ 24 (6) sentence 2 WEG). Without an advisory board that is two signatures, with one it is three. The manager (Verwalter) chairs the meeting unless the meeting resolves otherwise (§ 24 (5) WEG), so as a rule it is the manager who signs as chair.

The statute calls for the signature of one owner, meaning one person who owns a unit. Somebody who owns several units is still one owner and gives one signature. Whether a proxy may sign instead of the owner is not regulated in the WEG. The safe solution is the signature of an owner who attended the meeting.

What happens if somebody refuses to sign is not in the statute either. In practice the minutes then go out with a note recording the refusal and the reason given, and the management obtains the missing signature in writing afterwards or documents that it tried.

In one situation the statute makes the signatures a condition. Where proof of the manager’s authority has to be given by a publicly certified document, it is sufficient to produce minutes of the resolution appointing the manager in which the signatures of the persons named in § 24 (6) WEG are publicly certified (§ 26 (4) WEG). A manager who has to furnish such proof, before the land registry for instance, gets there with those minutes once the signatures are publicly certified. If one of the signatures is missing, the minutes do not carry the proof. The resolution appointing the manager is unaffected by that, because its validity does not depend on the minutes.

Without undue delay: a timing rule without a date

The statute says unverzüglich, without undue delay, and names no date. The term is open; the BGB describes it elsewhere as without culpable hesitation (§ 121 (1) sentence 1 BGB). What matters is therefore not a fixed number of days but whether the delay can be held against the person who caused it. A meeting of eight units with four resolutions is written up faster than one of forty units with a refurbishment debate and amended motions, and both can be without undue delay.

The practical yardstick comes from the challenge period. An action to challenge a resolution must be brought within one month of the resolution being passed (§ 45 sentence 1 WEG). That period runs from the resolution, not from the arrival of the minutes. Whoever sends the minutes only after five weeks takes from the owners the basis for deciding whether to go to court, and at the same time supplies an argument that the delay was culpable.

In our own practice the minutes go out two to four weeks after the meeting, and within a week where the agenda was short. These figures come from experience in the Rhine-Main region and are not a statutory deadline. Owners who want a binding timing rule have it written into the management contract, where it becomes a contractual duty, or they resolve it as part of the rules for organising meetings.

Minutes and resolution record: two documents, two purposes

Both documents contain resolutions, which is exactly why they are confused. They rest on different provisions, serve different purposes and address different readers. The minutes look back at one particular meeting. The resolution record answers the question of what is in force in this community today.

The row on the time limit marks the point where both documents carry the same term and still part company. The minutes have to be taken without undue delay after the meeting (§ 24 (6) sentence 1 WEG). Entries, notes and deletions in the resolution record, by contrast, have to be made without undue delay and dated (§ 24 (7) sentence 7 WEG). The second duty attaches not to the meeting but to each single event: to the resolution passed, to a challenge, to a setting aside. A record that is brought up to date once a year does not satisfy that duty.

An example makes the difference tangible. In 2023 the meeting resolves a rule for the use of the bicycle basement and in 2026 it repeals that rule. The minutes of 2023 remain correct as they are, because they document that one meeting. In the resolution record, by contrast, the repeal is noted, or the entry is deleted (§ 24 (7) sentences 4 and 5 WEG). Somebody buying a flat in 2027 who wants to know what applies finds the answer in the resolution record and not in a pile of old minutes.

The record expressly contains only the wording of the resolutions and of the operative parts of judgments, and the statute draws fine distinctions there. For the resolutions announced at the meeting, the place and date of the meeting must be given (§ 24 (7) sentence 2 no. 1 WEG); for those passed in writing, the place and date of the announcement (no. 2); and for the operative parts of court decisions in litigation under § 43 WEG, their date, the court and the parties (no. 3). Contributions to the debate, attendance lists and the manager’s reports do not belong in it. That restriction is not a shortcoming but the point of the document: it is meant to show at a glance what is in force.

Inspection: what owners can demand

For the resolution record the right of inspection is expressly in the statute. An owner, or a third party authorised by an owner, must be granted inspection of the resolution record on request (§ 24 (7) sentence 8 WEG). A prospective buyer is not yet an owner and reaches the documents through the seller’s authorisation, which is why that authorisation belongs in the preparation of every purchase.

For the minutes there is no provision of their own. They count as management documents, and for those § 18 (4) WEG applies: every owner may demand inspection of the management documents from the association of owners. The claim lies against the association, not against the manager personally.

The limit lies in the word inspection. The statute gives the right to look at the documents. It gives no claim to be sent a copy and no claim to have the originals handed over, and it does not regulate when and where inspection is to be granted either. In practice it happens at the management’s offices during normal business hours or through an owners portal, and sending the minutes to all owners is a service set out in the management contract. Owners who want that dispatch guaranteed watch for the clause when dealing with the management contract and a change of manager.

A tenant has no such right. § 24 (7) sentence 8 WEG names the owner and the third party authorised by an owner, and § 18 (4) WEG names the owner. A tenant who wants to know what was resolved depends on the landlord.

When the minutes are wrong

Minutes that are wrong do not change the resolution. The resolution comes into being at the meeting with the announcement of the result, which the statute presupposes when § 24 (7) sentence 2 no. 1 WEG speaks of the resolutions announced at the meeting. The minutes document that event, they do not create it. Nowhere does the WEG make the validity of a resolution depend on the minutes. 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). An error in the minutes belongs to neither category: it concerns the document, not the resolution.

In practice the minutes remain decisive all the same, because they are the evidence of what the resolution said. If a wrong figure appears there, the figure announced applies. Whoever asserts that, however, has to prove it against the text of signed minutes. That is why the minutes deserve to be read on arrival rather than filed away.

A procedure for correcting them is unknown to the WEG. It names neither a deadline for objecting nor a body that decides on correctness. The following route from practice has proved itself:

• Report the error to the management in writing, naming the agenda item and the correct version.
• The management agrees the correction with the other signatories, since it is their signatures that carry the minutes.
• Where the correction is undisputed, it goes to all owners as a dated supplement, while the original minutes are kept.
• Where it stays disputed, the objection is documented and attached to the minutes so that the differing account remains traceable.

The two questions have to be kept apart. A correction puts a document right. An owner who will not accept the outcome has to attack the resolution itself, and for that § 45 sentence 1 WEG applies: the action within one month of the resolution being passed, the reasons within two months. The statute provides no suspension of that period while the text of the minutes is in dispute; an owner who misses it through no fault of their own can only seek reinstatement (Wiedereinsetzung), since § 45 sentence 2 WEG applies §§ 233 to 238 ZPO accordingly. The safe course is to file in time and to sort out the text of the minutes alongside. Which defects make a resolution open to attack, and what it means for a resolution to become final, is set out in our guide to WEG resolutions.

Minutes in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region

The WEG is federal law, and in Frankfurt the same rules govern the minutes as in Offenbach, Bad Homburg or Eschborn. What differs is the composition of the communities. In many Frankfurt buildings a substantial share of the owners does not live on site, some of them abroad. For them the minutes are the only source of what the meeting decided, and the one-month period of § 45 sentence 1 WEG runs even while a letter is crossing a border.

In our condominium management in Frankfurt the draft minutes are therefore written on the day of the meeting, the signatures are collected in the week that follows, and dispatch is digital to every owner with an address on file. The resolution record is updated entry by entry rather than once a year. 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: 06/10/2026; laws and case law may change. No warranty is given as to completeness, accuracy or timeliness. When in doubt, please seek qualified advice.