How condo voting quorum works — a plain-English guide

Nearly every condominium decision — from repainting a facade to hiring a new manager — has to pass through a vote. Yet a surprising share of those votes are invalidated after the fact because the meeting missed quorum, or because someone counted heads instead of ownership shares. If you have ever left an owners' meeting unsure whether the vote actually counted, this guide is for you.

Short answer: quorum is the share of the building's total voting power that must be present or represented before the meeting can decide anything. It is measured in permillage, not in people, and it is a completely separate test from the majority needed to pass the resolution.

What quorum actually means

Quorum is the minimum share of the building that has to be present (in person or by proxy) for a decision to be legally binding. It is expressed as a fraction of the total permillage — the sum of every owner's thousandth share of the building. If your building has a total of 1,000 permillages and the by-laws require a 50% quorum, you need owners representing at least 500 permillages in the room before you can even open the vote.

The confusion usually starts here: two owners of a large penthouse can represent more permillage than ten studio owners combined. Counting heads gives you the wrong quorum every time.

A worked example

Take a 1,000-permillage building with a 50% quorum in its by-laws:

• Owners physically present: 340 permillages across six people.

• Valid proxies delivered before the meeting: 180 permillages across three mandates.

• Total present or represented: 520 permillages, against a threshold of 500. Quorum is met.

• Had only 480 permillages turned up, the meeting would have to be reconvened — no amount of discussion in the room fixes it.

Why weighted voting exists

Once quorum is met, the vote itself is almost always weighted by permillage rather than by headcount. The reason is simple: owners who paid for a larger share of the building also carry a larger share of the costs of every decision. A €100k roof repair is not billed evenly across units — it is split by permillage. So the vote that authorises it is weighted the same way.

This is not the same as one-person-one-vote. In practice you might have 18 people in the room but only three thresholds that matter: majority of permillage present, majority of total permillage, and unanimity. Different decisions require different thresholds.

The three thresholds you actually need to know

• Simple majority of permillage present — routine decisions: maintenance contracts, small repairs, next meeting's date.

• Majority of total permillage (all owners, present or not) — bigger structural work, hiring or firing the manager, adopting the annual budget.

• Unanimity or reinforced majority — changing the by-laws, altering ownership shares, selling common areas.

Local law varies by country, and your building's by-laws can raise (but rarely lower) these thresholds. Always check both.

How quorum works country by country

The word "quorum" does not mean the same thing everywhere. These are the rules that actually apply in the jurisdictions where CoCollab is used:

• France (loi du 10 juillet 1965). There is no attendance quorum at all: the AG is validly held whatever the turnout. What varies is the majority per resolution — article 24 (simple majority of votes cast), article 25 (absolute majority of all owners' votes), article 26 (double majority: a majority of owners holding at least two-thirds of the votes). Article 25-1 lets a resolution that got at least one third of all votes be re-voted immediately under article 24.

• Belgium (loi du 18 juin 2018). A real quorum applies: the general assembly deliberates only if owners representing more than half the shares in the common parts are present or represented, or if more than three-quarters of the shares are held by attendees. Failing that, a second assembly is convened and decides without a quorum requirement.

• Portugal (propriedade horizontal, Código Civil). The assembly at first call requires owners representing the majority of the total permilagem. If that is not met, it reconvenes half an hour later and decides with whoever attends, for ordinary resolutions.

• United Kingdom (leasehold / RTM companies). Quorum comes from the company's articles rather than statute — typically two members present in person or by proxy for an RTM company. Service-charge consultation under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 runs on its own separate timetable.

• Ireland (MUD Act 2011). The AGM of an owners' management company requires a quorum set by the constitution, commonly 20% of members; voting is generally one-unit-one-vote unless the constitution says otherwise.

• Canada — Ontario (Condominium Act, 1998). Quorum is 25% of the units on the first two attempts, dropping to 15% on a third attempt for an AGM. Electronic voting and proxies both count towards it.

• Switzerland (PPE, Code civil art. 712m). The assembly deliberates when half the owners, holding at least half the shares, are present or represented — with a lower threshold on second call.

Always read this alongside your own by-laws: they can tighten these numbers but essentially never loosen them.

Where meetings go wrong

Three patterns cause most invalidated votes:

1. Late arrivals count for attendance but not for the vote they missed. If quorum was borderline when the vote opened, adding a proxy afterwards does not retroactively legitimise the tally.

2. Proxies collected outside the required window. Most jurisdictions require proxies to be signed and delivered ahead of the meeting. Verbal proxies almost never count, and most systems cap how many mandates one person may hold.

3. The wrong majority threshold. A budget passed with 51% of *present* permillage is invalid in jurisdictions that require 51% of *total* permillage.

Check your numbers before the meeting

The cheapest way to avoid a reconvened AGM is to run the arithmetic in advance, once you know how many proxies you have in hand. Our free quorum calculator takes the building's total permillage and the permillage present or represented, and tells you which thresholds you clear. French co-ownerships can also use the calendrier d'assemblée générale to check every legal deadline around the meeting.

Making it easier

This is exactly why CoCollab's polls tally by permillage automatically. Every owner is registered with their share; the platform shows quorum live as votes come in, refuses to close the poll if quorum is not met, and produces a signed record of who voted what. Managers stop guessing and residents stop arguing about procedure.

If you're running a building and you're tired of every vote turning into a paperwork rescue mission, give CoCollab a try — it takes about ten minutes to set up your first poll.