The Register of Meeting Minutes: How to Keep It Properly

The register of owners' meeting minutes is one of the mandatory registers the manager must keep by law. Article 1130, no. 7 of the Italian Civil Code requires the manager to keep the register of meeting minutes, together with the register of appointment and removal of the manager and the accounting register. This register must also record meetings that failed to reach a quorum, any short written statements by owners and, if adopted or amended, the condominium regulations.

One of the four mandatory registers

The condominium reform made explicit the duty to keep an organic set of registers. Alongside the condominium registry (anagrafe condominiale), Article 1130 lists the register of minutes, the register of appointment and removal of the manager and the accounting register. These are the condominium's documentary memory: anyone taking over management must be able to consult them to reconstruct the building's history, the decisions taken and their enforcement.

The register of minutes, in particular, collects in chronological order all the minutes of that condominium's meetings, both ordinary and extraordinary. It is where the documentary evidence of collective decisions is preserved and, for this reason, it must be kept carefully and continuously.

What the register must contain

Each recorded set of minutes must faithfully account for what happened at the meeting. The essential elements are the identification of the condominium, the date and place of the meeting, the distinction between first and second call, the list of attendees with their thousandths (millesimi), the indication of principals and proxies, the agenda and, for each item, the decision taken with the outcome of the vote.

• Date, place and type of call of the meeting
• List of attendees, with thousandths (millesimi) and proxies
• Verification of the constitutive and deliberative quorums
• Summary of the discussion and text of the approved resolutions
• Voting outcome, with those in favour, against and abstaining
• Note of meetings that failed to reach a quorum

The rule expressly requires recording even meetings that did not reach the number needed to deliberate. This entry is not a detail: it documents the attempt to convene and may be relevant for calculating the deadlines of a later meeting.

Preservation, including in digital form

The law allows registers to be kept using computerized methods too. A well structured digital register ensures chronological order, searchability and data security, provided the sequence and content of the minutes can be traced with certainty. Preservation must extend over time, because minutes may be requested years later, for instance in the event of litigation or a review of approved expenses.

Whether on paper or in digital form, the principle is the same: the register must be complete, up to date and always available for consultation by owners, within the limits of the law, and for handover to the new manager in case of a change.

Owners' right to consult the minutes

Every owner has the right to inspect the registers and to obtain copies at their own expense. This right of access serves oversight of management and cannot be obstructed by the manager. Refusing or unjustifiably delaying access to the minutes breaches the duties of transparency and may amount to a serious irregularity.

Consequences of irregular keeping

Failure to keep the registers, or irregular keeping, including the register of minutes, is among the serious irregularities that can justify judicial removal of the manager under Article 1129 of the Civil Code. Beyond removal, an incomplete or disorderly register weakens the condominium's position if a resolution is challenged or expenses are contested: without clear and properly preserved minutes it can become difficult to prove what was decided and by what majorities.

From minutes to register without errors

In practice, the most frequent risk is scattering minutes across folders, emails and paper archives, with the danger of losing chronological order or misplacing a document. Centralizing the drafting and archiving of minutes drastically reduces this risk. With AmministraPro the manager can generate minutes, automatically file them in the building's register in chronological order and make them available to owners in the reserved area; the features dedicated to meetings and documentation are described on /funzioni, while the plans for practices of different sizes are set out on /prezzi.