Virtual and hybrid owners meetings in a German WEG

Meeting purely online requires a resolution with at least three quarters of the votes cast, valid three years at most (§ 23 (1a) WEG). A resolution passed before 2028 also requires an in-person meeting at least once a year until the end of 2028, unless the owners unanimously waive it (§ 48 (6) WEG).

Between the hall around the corner and the video call the Wohnungseigentumsgesetz (WEG, the German condominium act) places two resolutions with very different thresholds. This guide sets out which forms of meeting the statute knows, which resolution needs which majority, how much longer the transitional rule on the in-person meeting still bites, which technology a virtual meeting calls for in practice and what happens when the connection drops during a vote. The law is stated as at 22 September 2026. 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.

In person, hybrid, purely virtual: the distinctions the statute draws

Matters on which the owners may decide by resolution under the WEG or under an agreement among the owners are settled by a resolution passed at a meeting of the owners (§ 23 (1) sentence 1 WEG). The power to pass resolutions therefore reaches only as far as the statute or an agreement opens it. That is the statutory starting point: a meeting people travel to. Two routes lead from there into the digital, and both presuppose a resolution of the association.

The hybrid meeting keeps its venue. The owners may resolve that owners may take part in the meeting without being present at its venue and may exercise all or individual rights, in whole or in part, by means of electronic communication (§ 23 (1) sentence 2 WEG). The wording allows a fine-tuning that is easily missed: all or individual rights, in whole or in part. A resolution may therefore confine electronic exercise to individual rights, the right to speak for instance, and reserve voting to those present. No special majority is required, so the ordinary majority of the votes cast applies (§ 25 (1) WEG).

The purely virtual meeting has no venue at all. The owners may resolve, by at least three quarters of the votes cast, that within a period of no more than three years from the resolution the meeting takes place, or may take place, without the physical presence of the owners and the manager at a venue (§ 23 (1a) sentence 1 WEG). What separates it from the hybrid form is not the technology but the place: at a virtual meeting nobody is physically present, the manager (Verwalter) included.

The two routes are of different ages. Hybrid participation under § 23 (1) sentence 2 WEG arrived with the Wohnungseigentumsmodernisierungsgesetz (WEMoG, the 2020 reform act) of 16 October 2020 (BGBl. I S. 2187) and has applied since 1 December 2020. The purely virtual meeting and its transitional rule are four years younger and come from a statute of their own: § 23 (1a) and § 48 (6) WEG were inserted by the Act permitting virtual owners meetings of 10 October 2024, promulgated on 16 October 2024 (BGBl. 2024 I no. 306) and in force since 17 October 2024. The virtual meeting is frequently dated to 2023, the year of the government bill, which the federal cabinet adopted on 13 September 2023. That makes no difference to the deadlines in § 48 (6) WEG, but it does to the question from when such a resolution could be passed at all.

The enabling resolution under § 23 (1a) WEG

The three-quarters majority relates to the votes cast, not to all owners and not to the co-ownership shares (Miteigentumsanteile). An owner who stays away and appoints no proxy thereby lowers the number of votes cast and with it the absolute number of yes votes the three quarters require. Counting follows the voting principle that applies to the association: by statute each owner has one vote (§ 25 (2) sentence 1 WEG), and the community rules (Gemeinschaftsordnung) may provide otherwise.

The statute caps the period at three years from the day the resolution is passed, and a shorter period is permissible. That the resolution has to state the period expressly is not something § 23 (1a) sentence 1 WEG requires: where none is named, the statutory maximum of three years applies. Writing it into the text of the resolution all the same is a practice recommendation, because the minutes then show when the arrangement ends. A permanent switch to the virtual form is not something § 23 (1a) WEG offers. How often such a resolution may be passed is not addressed: what the statute limits is the period covered by each resolution, not the number of resolutions. An association that wants to carry on therefore puts the item back on the agenda in good time before the period runs out.

The wording allows two variants, and the resolution should keep them apart. If the owners resolve that the meeting takes place virtually, the form is fixed for the whole period. If they resolve that it may take place virtually, whoever convenes it decides case by case. The second variant is the more flexible one; which of the two is intended belongs in the text of the resolution.

Like any other resolution, this one needs to be announced: a resolution is valid only if the subject matter was designated when the meeting was convened (§ 23 (2) WEG). An enabling resolution slipped through under any other business is open to challenge however clear the majority was. Which majorities apply to the remaining subjects, and when a resolution becomes final, is set out in our guide to WEG resolutions.

The substantive limit comes in the second sentence: the virtual owners meeting must be comparable to an in-person meeting in terms of participation and the exercise of rights (§ 23 (1a) sentence 2 WEG). The statute says comparable, not equivalent and not identical. Two things are measured, participation and the exercise of rights. Whoever takes part must be able to follow the discussion, ask to speak and vote. A one-way broadcast without a return channel cannot be reconciled with that.

The transitional rule: an in-person meeting up to and including 2028

This is the time-bound part of the arrangement, and it does not sit in § 23 WEG but among the transitional provisions. The German wording of § 48 (6) WEG is:

Fassen die Wohnungseigentümer vor dem 1. Januar 2028 einen Beschluss nach § 23 Absatz 1a, ist bis einschließlich 2028 mindestens einmal im Jahr eine Präsenzversammlung durchzuführen, sofern die Wohnungseigentümer hierauf nicht durch einstimmigen Beschluss verzichten. Ein Verstoß gegen diese Pflicht führt nicht zur Nichtigkeit oder Anfechtbarkeit der in einer virtuellen Wohnungseigentümerversammlung gefassten Beschlüsse.

In English, and this is a working translation without official status: where the owners pass a resolution under § 23 (1a) before 1 January 2028, an in-person meeting must be held at least once a year up to and including 2028, unless the owners waive this by unanimous resolution. A breach of that duty does not render the resolutions passed at a virtual owners meeting void or voidable.

Those two sentences carry more than the common short version, that in-person meetings remain compulsory until 2028, manages to convey.

The duty attaches to the date of the resolution, not to the date of any meeting. An association resolving in 2026 is bound; one passing the identical resolution in January 2028 is not. And the duty stops with the year 2028 even where the enabling resolution runs longer: a resolution passed in autumn 2026 carries until autumn 2029, but for 2029 § 48 (6) sentence 1 WEG no longer calls for an in-person meeting. From what point in the first year the duty bites is not something the wording says; it names only the trigger and the end.

In practice the duty merges with one that exists anyway. The manager convenes the owners meeting at least once a year (§ 24 (1) WEG). § 48 (6) sentence 1 WEG does not call for a second meeting; it follows that at least one of the year’s meetings has to be held in person. An association that meets exactly once a year therefore cannot hold that meeting purely online in the years concerned.

The exception is narrow. The waiver requires a unanimous resolution, whereas the virtual meeting itself can be introduced with three quarters of the votes cast. The way out of the duty is thus harder to reach than the duty itself, and a single no vote is enough to defeat it. This resolution too needs its own agenda item (§ 23 (2) WEG).

The second sentence takes the sharp edge off the duty: a breach does not render the resolutions passed at a virtual meeting void or voidable. An association meeting only online in 2027 has infringed § 48 (6) sentence 1 WEG, yet the resolutions passed there stand. That is not permission to drop the in-person meeting. It is the legislator’s decision not to let the association’s resolutions founder on an organisational error.

This guide states the law as at 22 September 2026. At that date § 48 (6) WEG is in force unchanged, and the most recent amendment to the WEG dates from 10 October 2024. Anyone reading much later should call the provision up again: its practical effect ends with the year 2028, and the combination of a cut-off date and a final year makes any summary go stale quickly.

Technical minimum requirements: what the statute says and what it does not

The WEG contains no technical requirement. It names no platform, no bandwidth, no encryption standard, no duty to transmit video and no requirement as to the participants’ equipment. The only statutory yardstick is the comparability of participation and the exercise of rights under § 23 (1a) sentence 2 WEG. Everything else is interpretation of that provision and management practice. What follows is marked as practice and is not a legal duty; there is no statutory source for it.

The yardstick itself does yield a floor. Participation is comparable only if the owner can follow the discussion, ask to speak, table motions and vote. A channel that transmits in one direction only does not achieve that. Whether video is needed or audio suffices is not something the statute says.

What has proved itself in practice:

• A test session a few days before the meeting that every owner can join without registering.
• Dial-in by telephone as a fallback for owners without a stable data connection or without suitable equipment.
• The access details in the notice itself. Notice goes out in text form in any event (§ 24 (4) sentence 1 WEG), and a second mailing only generates queries.
• A second person looking after the technology, so that the chair can run the meeting rather than operate the software.
• A voting procedure settled in advance that also covers how abstentions are recorded and how a roll-call vote is handled.

Voting rights, identity and a dropped connection

The form of the meeting changes nothing about the voting rights. The majority of the votes cast decides (§ 25 (1) WEG), each owner has one vote (§ 25 (2) sentence 1 WEG), and where a unit of condominium ownership belongs to several persons jointly they may exercise the voting right only uniformly (§ 25 (2) sentence 2 WEG). What is counted is owners, not units: someone who owns three flats still has one vote under the statutory per-head principle unless the community rules say otherwise. Representation remains available, powers of attorney require text form (Textform) to be valid (§ 25 (3) WEG), and the exclusion from voting in § 25 (4) WEG applies online exactly as it does on site.

On checking identity the WEG contains no rule at all. It prescribes neither an attendance list nor a procedure for establishing who sits behind a given connection. In practice the answer is personalised access details per owner, a comparison of those connected against the list of owners at the start of the meeting, and the same recording of votes represented as at an in-person meeting. That is management practice, not a statutory duty.

A dropped connection is likewise unregulated. The statute does not say whether a meeting must be interrupted when a participant falls out, how long anyone has to wait, or who bears the risk of the fault. The yardstick remains § 23 (1a) sentence 2 WEG: an owner cut off from participation and from the exercise of rights is attending a meeting that, to that extent, is no longer comparable to an in-person one. What follows from that for the individual resolution is the subject of the next section.

For practice that means the chair halts the vote as soon as a failure is reported or becomes visible in the participant list, waits for a period announced beforehand and repeats the vote once the owner reconnects. A note of the interruption and its time helps anyone who later has to reconstruct what happened. It is not required: the minutes must contain the resolutions passed (§ 24 (6) sentence 1 WEG), and as to their content the statute asks for nothing beyond that.

When the technology fails: what it means for the resolutions

A technical fault does not make a resolution ineffective by itself. A resolution is void only where it infringes a rule of law compliance with which cannot validly be waived (§ 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). A failure during a vote falls into the second group: the resolution stands until a court says otherwise.

Removing it takes the action to challenge, and that action is under time pressure. It 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), and it is directed against the association of owners (§ 44 (2) sentence 1 WEG). How the two periods fall in the calendar and what the case is likely to cost is set out in our guide to challenging a resolution.

Whether such an action succeeds turns in practice on whether the failure could have affected the outcome. An owner who was missing for two minutes and then voted is in a different position from one who missed the entire discussion and the vote while their own motion was being dealt with. There is no statutory rule on the point; for a technical failure the WEG supplies neither a set of conditions nor a legal consequence.

Only one consequence is spelled out in this context, and it does not concern the technology: a breach of the duty to hold an annual in-person meeting does not render the resolutions passed at a virtual owners meeting void or voidable (§ 48 (6) sentence 2 WEG). Nothing can be derived from that provision for a dropped connection. It merely shows where the legislator did regulate a consequence and where it did not.

For the management the practical answer to a doubtful case is simple: where a failure occurs, the vote is repeated instead of its validity being debated. Repeating a vote costs two minutes, while litigation blocks the implementation of the resolution for months.

Virtual meetings in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region

The WEG is federal law, and the majorities in Offenbach are the same as in Bad Homburg or Eschborn. What differs is how the associations are made up. In Frankfurt a considerable share of condominiums belongs to landlords living elsewhere, some of them abroad. For them the form of the meeting decides whether they exercise their vote themselves or issue a proxy with instructions.

That is why the hybrid form is the quieter route for many associations. It needs only a simple majority, keeps the venue open for those who want to attend in person, and does not trigger the transitional rule in § 48 (6) WEG at all, because it is not a resolution under § 23 (1a) WEG. The purely virtual meeting pays off where nearly all owners live away and the journey regularly fails to happen.

In our condominium management in Frankfurt we establish who could actually take part online before the vote on the form is taken, and only then propose a variant. A resolution on virtual meetings that some of the owners cannot follow technically creates new disputes rather than fewer. 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: 13/10/2026; laws and case law may change. No warranty is given as to completeness, accuracy or timeliness. When in doubt, please seek qualified advice.