Weighted voting in housing associations: per unit, per share or per head

In a club, one member is one vote. In a housing association it is rarely that simple. Votes may follow units, shares in the building, or members, and some decisions need a majority counted two ways at once. If you move the general meeting online, the voting system must compute exactly what your bylaws and the law prescribe, and you need to know what that is before you set it up.

The three common systems

Per member, by head. Each member has one vote regardless of how much they own. It is common in housing co-operatives, and it is the default in a German owners' association unless the community rules provide otherwise.

Per unit. One vote per flat, house or plot. A member with two units has two votes. Danish housing co-operatives typically vote one per share in the co-operative, which in practice means one per flat; many plot owners' associations and residents' management companies count the same way.

Per share. Each unit carries a share of the whole, and the vote is weighted accordingly: fordelingstal in a Danish owners' association, tantièmes in a French co-ownership, co-ownership shares in Germany where the community rules adopt them, the shares in the deed of division in the Netherlands, the participation quota in Spain. The majority is then computed on shares, not on the number of people voting.

Read the bylaws first, then the statute for your type of association; many bylaws combine the systems, with one vote per unit for ordinary matters and shares for anything touching the common costs.

Majorities by share and by head

Some decisions require a double majority. In a French co-ownership, article 26 decisions need a majority of all owners, counted by head, who together hold at least two-thirds of the votes, counted in tantièmes. Spanish law requires a double majority of owners and quotas for a range of decisions. Danish owners' associations commonly require a qualified majority both by fordelingstal and by number of members for major works or bylaw amendments. The system must keep two tallies for that item and declare the motion carried only if both thresholds are met.

Majority of those voting, or of everyone

The other question that decides results is the denominator. "A majority" may mean more votes for than against among those voting, or more than half of all the votes in the association, present or not. Bylaw amendments are often of the second kind. In a French co-ownership, article 24 decisions are taken by a majority of the votes cast by owners present, represented or voting by post, while article 25 requires an absolute majority of the votes of all owners.

Abstentions matter here. In a majority of votes cast, an abstention is usually left out of the count. In a majority of all votes, an abstention works like a vote against. State the treatment in the material so nobody is surprised, and set it per item in the system.

Caps and special cases

Some rules cut a large owner down. In a French co-ownership, an owner holding more than half the tantièmes has their votes reduced to the sum of everyone else's (article 22). Members in arrears may lose the vote, but only if the bylaws say so. Proxies carry the weight of the member who gave them, and any cap on the number of proxies may be expressed in votes rather than people; the guide on proxy voting goes through that.

Co-owned units need one decision: either the system issues one link per unit and the co-owners agree who uses it, or it issues one link per co-owner and splits the weight.

What the system must compute

• A voter list with a weight per member, derived from units and shares, that handles a member with several units.
• Per item: the majority type, simple or qualified, by share, by head or both, and the denominator, votes cast or all votes.
• Proxies that carry the weight of the giver and respect any cap.
• Secret ballots where the weight travels with the vote but the identity does not; see the guide on secret ballots online.
• Results shown as for, against and abstain in both shares and heads, and a clear statement of carried or not carried against the rule set.
• Manual entry for a vote cast on paper by a member without a device, with the right weight.
• A record showing all of the above with timestamps.

Preparing the list

The weights come from a source outside the association: the land register, the register of shares, the deed of division. Reconcile the list against that source after every sale, and again before the notice goes out. Check that the shares add up to the total they are supposed to, whether that is 100, 1,000 or 10,000.

A worked example, using the item setup from the step-by-step guide: a co-ownership has 10,000 tantièmes. Owners present, represented or voting by post hold 7,200. An article 25 decision needs more than 5,000 tantièmes in favour regardless of who turned up. An article 24 decision needs more for than against among the 7,200, leaving abstentions aside. The same proposal can pass under one rule and fail under the other, which is why the system must be told the rule per item and the record must show which rule was applied.

Checklist

• Weighting system identified from bylaws and statute: per head, per unit, per share, or a combination.
• Items needing a double majority marked.
• Denominator and treatment of abstentions decided per item.
• Caps on large owners, proxies and members in arrears applied.
• Voter list reconciled against the register and summing to the total.
• Record shows weights, rule applied and result in shares and heads.