AGM minutes done right: a template and editorial guide for block presidents

Minutes are the quietest document in a residential block and the one most likely to be read in anger. Decisions a community took unanimously in March become contested in November when the bill arrives, the contractor underperforms, or a new owner buys in and questions the rule they inherited. The minutes are what the dispute turns on. They either contain the answer or they invite the argument.

This guide is a practical, editorial walk through how to write minutes that hold up. It is broadly applicable — UK leasehold blocks, Spanish comunidades de propietarios, Australian strata, Singaporean MCSTs all run their AGMs in recognisably similar ways — but the structural rules below are written to satisfy the strictest of those regimes (the Spanish LPH), which means they will satisfy the others by default.

What minutes are actually for

Three readers care about the minutes, and minutes that serve all three are nearly always good ones:

1. The owners who were not at the meeting. They need to understand what was decided, by what majority, and what they need to do (pay a derrama, comply with a new rule, object within a deadline).
2. The new owners who arrive years later. They need to see what the community has agreed to over time — particularly any rule changes, contractor decisions, or special assessments that bind them.
3. A court, if it ever comes to that. A judge reading minutes in a dispute is looking for procedural sufficiency: was the meeting properly convened, was the quorum reached, was the agenda followed, was the majority correct, were the minutes circulated.

Most communities write minutes for reader 1. Good communities write for all three.

The structural anatomy of a defensible AGM minute

Every minute should contain these blocks, in this order. Skipping any of them is the cheapest way to get a decision challenged later.

1. Heading. Community name, date, time, location, and whether the meeting is ordinary or extraordinary.
2. Attendance. A list of owners present in person, owners present by proxy (with the proxy-holder named), and the total proportion of participation quotas represented. This last figure is the one judges look for first.
3. Convocation. A statement that the meeting was called with the statutory notice period, with the agenda attached, and that no objections to the convocation were raised.
4. Agenda items. Each item gets its own numbered section.
5. Per-item record. For each item: the proposal, the discussion summary (one paragraph maximum), the vote outcome with both number of owners and proportion of quotas in favour, against, and abstaining, and the resolution adopted.
6. Ruegos y preguntas / Any other business. A separate, clearly-labelled section. Items here are non-binding — make that explicit.
7. Close. Time the meeting ended.
8. Signatures. President and secretary. In most jurisdictions both signatures are required for the minutes to be binding.

Language: what to write, what to delete

Minutes are not a transcript. They are a legal record. The temptation to include personal exchanges, accusations, or "the president was visibly upset" should be resisted absolutely. Three rules:

1. Decisions, not arguments. Record what was decided, not who said what to whom on the way to deciding. If three owners spoke against an item before it passed, write "Three owners voiced opposition; the proposal was approved by X owners representing Y% of quotas." Not their names, not their words.
2. Numbers, not adjectives. Replace "the budget was overwhelmingly approved" with "the budget was approved by 14 owners representing 78% of quotas, with 2 against and 1 abstention." Adjectives invite challenge; numbers do not.
3. Verbs in the past, not the conditional. "The community resolved to install solar panels" beats "The community will look into installing solar panels" — the second one is unfindable later when someone asks whether the decision actually happened.

A working template

Below is the template we recommend to the blocks we work with. Adapt the headings to your local statute, but keep the structure intact.

After the meeting: circulation and the silent-assent clock

Minutes that sit in a drawer have no legal effect. The clock that turns absent owners into deemed-yes voters does not start until the minutes have been delivered in a way that produces evidence of receipt. The communities we work with achieve this with three habits:

1. Send minutes within ten days. Every additional week is a week the absent owners might claim they were unaware of a 3/5 decision they would otherwise have objected to.
2. Use a channel with proof of delivery. Email with a tracked read-receipt, a community platform with read confirmations, or burofax for the largest decisions. WhatsApp messages and printed sheets in the lobby do not produce admissible evidence of receipt.
3. Keep an indexed archive. A single PDF of every signed minute, named consistently (YYYY-MM-DD), held in a place owners can access for at least six years. New owners arriving will inherit the entire history.