General meeting minutes: what they must contain and how to check them

The minutes are the only proof of what was decided. Vague minutes make a decision arguable for years.

Once the meeting is over, everything rests on one document: the minutes. They evidence what was voted, by whom, and at what majority. Three years later, when a contractor disputes an order or an owner refuses a charge, nobody remembers the room — only the minutes remain.

Drafting falls to the manager, but re-reading is one of the board’s most useful checks, and a board member has often sat on the meeting’s bureau.

What the minutes must contain

• Identification of the association, the date, place and format of the meeting.
• The bureau: chair, secretary, scrutineers.
• The attendance sheet, with owners present, represented and voting by post.
• The text of each resolution put to the vote, exactly as worded.
• The result resolution by resolution, with the majority applied.
• The names of dissenting or absent owners, and the corresponding votes.

That last point is most often rushed, and it matters most: it determines who may challenge a decision and when the clock starts. See challenging a general meeting decision.

The most frequent errors

• A resolution summarised instead of reproduced: "façade works approved" says nothing of amount, contractor or quote.
• A result given in numbers of owners rather than in shares.
• Dissenting owners not named.
• A resolution adopted without stating the majority applied.
• Decisions on items not on the agenda, which cannot yield a valid resolution.

The first point costs the most in practice: a year on, nobody knows which quote was approved. Carrying amounts and references into the resolution text is part of preparing the agenda.

Notification, and the clock it starts

The minutes must be served on owners shortly after the meeting. That is not a formality: it starts the period during which a dissenting or absent owner can act against the decisions.

Proof of service therefore matters, and this is where the electronic route changes habits: see the electronic notification rules.

What the board should re-read

A useful review takes fifteen minutes and focuses on four points: do the voted amounts match the quotes presented? Are the stated majorities consistent with the nature of the decisions? Are dissenters named? Are deferred items clearly identified as such?

Any error should be raised with the manager immediately, in writing: the longer it waits, the harder correction becomes. The minutes then join the permanent archive — see what to keep and for how long.

Minutes as raw material for the annual report

Successive minutes tell the building’s story: what was voted, deferred, or never carried out. They are the board’s first source when accounting for its term.

A board that re-reads three years of minutes spots dormant decisions immediately. That is also what a well-built board annual report produces.

What is not written in the minutes was, three years later, never decided.

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