Definition

A condominium owners’ association (COA) is created when a real estate object is divided into smaller, self-contained units which are treated as separately owned property. Normally the scenario is a building being divided into condominium apartments.

From the point of view of the manager, the condominium owners' association is an owner of managed property. Since the association is a legal person, it is jointly and severally liable, and also can place legal demands on the manager. In this regard, the association is no different than a “normal” owner.

Unlike a “normal” owner, however, the association has an internal relationship from itself as a whole to the individual members making up the association: the association has a legal expectations of its members and the members in turn have the same with regard to the association.

The condominium owners’ association, as a legal person, is represented by natural persons (usually the condominium board). The association is the contractual partner of the real estate manager and is liable for the costs of ownership and management.

Structure

The owners of the individual apartments (in some cases, the units could be for commercial use instead) form the condominium owners’ association. The units owned by the individual owners are referred to as condominiums.

Those parts of the real estate object that do not belong to condominiums are considered to be common property.

The following criteria apply to common property:

Integration

In Flexible Real Estate Management, you represent the condominium owners’ association in the system using a COA mandate. You create the master data for this COA mandate in the COA company code.

For more information, see