• by martin.orn
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How the apartment association chairmen should be paid has been the subject of ongoing discussion as long as apartment associations have existed. On the one hand, it is believed that apartment associations are poor and cannot pay the chairmen a competitive salary. On the other hand, motivating the chairmen produces better results and enables to involve more competent people.

Management of an apartment association requires one to be open-minded and have a moderate level of knowledge in different fields (construction, jurisprudence, finance etc.). The chairman of the apartment association has to have good communication skills because the residents in the apartment have different education levels and standards of living, but most importantly – they all have different temperaments. In addition to that, the job is quite stressful because the residents do not care that the apartment association manager also has a personal life. He or she might be contacted after midnight.

Leaving aside emotional statements in support of paying for work in the apartment association (“every job requires compensation”) and against (“you can work for free for the good of your own building”), decisions concerning remuneration for apartment association management should be made based on the tasks and responsibility placed upon the chairman of the aparment association. For example in a small apartment association (up to 12 members) where the relationships between the neighbors are positive and no big renovation work must be done, the apartment association manager has minimum obligations – he/she has to hold a few meetings every year and carry out smaller work. In these cases if anyone decides to become the chairman of the apartment association, no salary has to be paid. Great respect for those who do this work for free and unfortunately people do not express their gratitude for the work they do.

This solution should be made an exception rather than the rule, specifically in bigger apartment associations with more severe problems. A big amount of time is spent on managing the apartment association and most people do not want to spend it without getting paid. You must keep in mind that this is work. If the chairmen are getting paid, the members of the apartment association can demand that they need to carry out some tasks.

How much the chairman of the apartment association should be paid depends on the rules of the association. Tasks can for example be shared between many people – one person is responsible for the renovation, the other person holds the meetings and the third handles current issues. Salary can also be paid to one person who does all the tasks. When calculating the salary, you can consider taking into account the time spent on the management of the apartment association and an hourly rate of 6 – 10 euros net pay.

This describes the salary for the actual time spent on managing the apartment association. It does not matter if the person is a board member or not. The chairman can also be hired from outside the board/apartment association or a management service provider can manage the apartment association. There is no point in paying board members to just sit there and do nothing. Those few meetings can be held without requiring payment.