Virtual owners’ meetings & plug-in solar devices: New condominium owners’ association regulations 2024

The Federal Council approved the facilitation of the installation of plug-in solar devices (including balcony power plants) in its session on 27.09.2024. Furthermore, the legislative amendment also creates the possibility of holding owners’ meetings entirely online. KFR – Kanzlei für Real Estate summarizes the most important changes.

Privileged installation of plug-in solar devices

§ 20 para. 2 WEG is supplemented by a no. 5. With this legislative amendment, “each apartment owner may demand reasonable structural alterations that serve the generation of electricity through plug-in solar devices.” The purpose of § 20 para. 2 WEG is that an unwilling majority should no longer be able to prevent structural alterations that would be “particularly significant” for individual apartment owners and “sensible from an overall societal perspective”. The installation of a plug-in solar device shall now also constitute such a structural alteration. The provision in § 20 para. 2 WEG must be viewed in cases of rented residential/partial ownership in conjunction with the more or less parallel rights of the tenant under § 554 BGB and harmonized accordingly in its application. For this reason, § 554 was also amended accordingly and reads from the entry into force of the amendment: “The tenant may demand that the landlord permit structural alterations to the rented property that serve the use by people with disabilities, the charging of electrically operated vehicles, burglary protection or the generation of electricity through plug-in solar devices. The claim does not exist if the structural alteration cannot reasonably be expected of the landlord even taking into account the interests of the tenant. The tenant may undertake to provide special security in connection with the structural alteration; § 551 paragraph 3 applies accordingly.” According to the legislative rationale and in accordance with the technical standards of the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE)/Forum Network Technology/Network Operation in VDE (FNN), plug-in solar devices are currently understood to mean small PV systems with a maximum inverter output of 600 watts (W). As a rule, these are devices operable by laypersons, consisting of (at least) one photovoltaic module, a grid-connected inverter, a connected load and a plug for connection to final circuits. More on legal questions surrounding tenancy law and property – click here.

Virtual owners’ meeting

Number 2 creates a resolution competence for purely online meetings (“virtual condominium owners’ meetings”). The existing possibility of enabling online participation in in-person meetings (“hybrid condominium owners’ meetings”) remains unchanged. In future, there will therefore be the option of holding condominium owners’ meetings in person, in a hybrid format or purely virtually. § 23 WEG is supplemented by a para. 1a, which reads: “(1a) The apartment owners may resolve with at least three quarters of the votes cast that the meeting shall take place or may take place within a period of no more than three years from the date of the resolution without the physical presence of the apartment owners and the administrator at a meeting venue (virtual condominium owners’ meeting). The virtual condominium owners’ meeting must be comparable to an in-person meeting with regard to participation and the exercise of rights.”

Transitional provision until 2028

In addition, § 48 WEG, which contains the transitional provisions, was supplemented by a paragraph 6: “(6) If the apartment owners pass a resolution pursuant to § 23 paragraph 1a before 1 January 2028, at least one in-person meeting must be held per year until and including 2028, unless the apartment owners waive this by unanimous resolution. A violation of this obligation does not lead to the invalidity or contestability of resolutions passed at a virtual condominium owners’ meeting.” This transitional provision is intended to facilitate the transition to virtual condominium owners’ meetings for apartment owners and to prevent less tech-savvy people from being “caught off guard” by purely virtual owners’ meetings. Since an evaluation of the condominium ownership reform is to be carried out in 2027, the timeframe until 2028 has not been chosen by chance. This is intended to give the legislator the opportunity to remedy any weaknesses of the virtual owners’ meeting through legislative amendments before this deadline expires.

Practical note

The administrator should inform the apartment owners about the new possibilities and at the same time – if not already done – review their technical capabilities for conducting virtual owners’ meetings and adapt them to the requirements if necessary. The possibility of holding purely virtual owners’ meetings could also significantly simplify the administrator’s life, as the tight time restrictions currently often assumed in case law for owners’ meetings (no meetings during holiday periods, no meetings at “inconvenient times”) could become a thing of the past thanks to the ability to dial in from anywhere. This could also make the profession of condominium property manager more attractive. Letting owners can now hardly defend themselves against the often disparagingly viewed balcony power plants vis-à-vis their tenants, since they themselves have a right to installation against the owners’ association and the reasonableness threshold is thereby considerably lowered. Administrators could proactively pass basic resolutions here to make life easier for landlords.