Urgent works: who decides when the meeting cannot wait

The meeting is eight months away and the boiler died in January. That case is provided for — you just need to know how it works.

The general rule is clear: works are voted at the general meeting. But a building cannot wait eight months to repair a burst pipe, restart a stuck lift or secure a loose railing. Condo law therefore provides an exception for emergencies.

The exception is narrow, and that is where most conflicts start: what the manager treats as urgent, the meeting sometimes finds debatable — especially once it sees the invoice.

What is genuinely urgent

Urgency is not mere inconvenience: it is what threatens people’s safety, the preservation of the building, or deprives occupants of an essential service. The criterion is not the amount, but the impossibility of waiting without making things worse.

• An active leak on a common pipe, damaging the fabric by the hour.
• A total loss of heating or hot water in cold weather.
• A lift out of service where some residents cannot use the stairs.
• Anything about to fall: a railing, spalling façade, a branch.
• A broken entrance door or lock leaving the building open.

Conversely, a tired façade, stairwell decoration or replacing still-working equipment is not urgent, however exasperating.

What the manager can commit

In an emergency the manager can have the works necessary to safeguard the building carried out on their own initiative. They must inform owners, account for it, and call a meeting to ratify the spending and, where needed, authorise a call for funds.

The board has an explicit role: the manager must inform it, and good practice is to consult it before committing significant sums. A reachable, responsive board is a direct asset here.

What the board should require

• A written description of the defect, with photos and the date it was observed.
• The quote, however rough, for the work committed.
• A clear split between making safe immediately and the permanent repair, which can often wait for the vote.
• The actual cost once finished, against what was announced.
• The item placed on the next meeting’s agenda.

That split between making safe and permanent repair is the most useful of all: it allows fast action without committing the building to a full project decided by one person. The permanent works are then prepared normally — see comparing quotes.

Funding the unforeseen

An emergency always lands at the wrong moment for cash. A building that funds its works fund properly absorbs it; a building with tight cash must call funds in a hurry, which generates arrears.

It is one of the most concrete arguments for a realistic contribution: see the works fund and the signs of a building slipping.

Stopping emergencies becoming the norm

In many buildings half the "emergencies" were foreseeable: equipment flagged as end-of-life three years earlier, a pipe that leaks regularly, a maintenance contract raising the same alert every year.

A building that tracks its issues and plans its works suffers far fewer: see the incident log and the multi-year works plan.

Half a building’s emergencies were already sitting, three years earlier, in a report nobody read.

Log emergencies with CoproHarmony

CoproHarmony records the incident, photos, date, exchanges with the manager and quotes, so the full file is at hand when the meeting ratifies it. Create your free space.