Foreign owners meet the Montenegrin building assembly late, usually when a bill arrives or a façade gets scaffolded. Until then the building looks like a service that comes with the flat. It is not. It is a decision-making body you joined on the day you registered, with its own competences, its own voting rules, and a quorum rule that rewards whoever shows up.
The statute is short, specific and almost entirely unwritten about in English: the Law on the Maintenance of Residential Buildings, in force as amended, including a Constitutional Court decision in the chain.
What counts as "the building" you now co-own
Article 3 lists the common parts, in addition to those already defined by the property law: the approach to the entrance; service rooms such as storage for cleaning equipment and for prams, bicycles, mopeds and other small vehicles; rooms for maintenance and household services such as laundry and drying rooms, ironing rooms, hobby and residents' gathering spaces; landscaped green, sports and other surfaces that are not local goods in general use; and parking areas that are not local goods of general interest.
Then a second paragraph that matters to almost every foreign buyer on the coast. In buildings in tourist zones — "exclusive residential buildings" — the common parts also include: rooms for receiving guests, that is reception and lobby; rooms for sport and recreation such as gyms, fitness halls and training rooms; rooms for physical recovery such as massage rooms and saunas; water sports facilities including pools; and jointly owned premises in which a business activity is carried on.
Read that against the brochure. The pool, the reception and the spa in a resort-style building are, as a matter of statute, common parts of the building — which means they are governed by the decisions of the owners' assembly, not by whoever currently operates them. What the co-ownership share in such a building actually buys is set out in buying a flat, inheriting a building, and one concrete example of the disputes that follow is in Dukley Gardens.
Who decides how the building is run
Article 5(1) is the starting rule: the assembly of unit owners decides how the work of maintaining the building and the urban parcel is organised.
Article 5(2) then creates an exception that a coastal buyer should look for before signing. In tourist zones, the tasks and manner of maintaining buildings and urban parcels may be determined by the contract transferring ownership of the special part, concluded between the investor and/or another owner and the buyer.
In other words: in a resort building, your own purchase contract may already have settled how maintenance is organised — before any assembly met. That is not automatically bad, but it is a clause to read rather than discover.
Article 5(3) adds a filing duty: the manager must deliver the rules on mutual relations between unit owners and that transfer contract to the competent local authority within 15 days of their adoption or conclusion.
What the assembly is actually competent to decide
Article 5a lists the assembly's competences, and the list is broader than most owners assume. The assembly:
- performs the management of the building, that is, selects a professional manager;
- elects and dismisses the manager;
- decides on disposal of the common parts of the building;
- decides on the use of common parts by letting parts of them to third parties or to owners of special parts;
- determines the monthly amount paid by owners of special parts for the tasks within the housing community's competence — maintenance costs, the costs of the community's organs, and other costs;
- adopts the Programme for maintaining the common parts;
- consents to the plan for improving energy efficiency;
- decides on organising maintenance, and on entrusting it;
- decides on undertaking works on the common parts;
- decides on maintaining the land for the regular use of the building, on its physical and technical security, and on how that land is used;
- decides on improving the common parts;
- decides on insurance against liability for damage caused to third parties through failure to maintain;
- decides on placing or installing objects on the common parts and on that land.
Two of these are worth flagging to anyone buying into a building with amenities. The assembly can decide to let common parts to third parties — which is how a lobby café or a leased pool arrangement becomes an assembly question. And the assembly, not the individual owner, decides on liability insurance for failures to maintain.
One unit, one vote — and how you may cast it
Article 6 sets the mechanics.
Every unit owner has one vote in the assembly. A unit owner may vote in person, through an authorised representative, or electronically. Electronic voting is available if the owner has delivered to the president of the assembly a written and certified statement on the manner of voting, containing in particular the email address from which voting will take place.
If one special part has several co-owners or joint owners, they together have one vote, and they are obliged to authorise a representative in the assembly and deliver the authorisation to the president in writing.
And a limit that surprises garage buyers: an owner who holds ownership or co-ownership only of a garage, basement or other special part that is not residential or business premises votes only on decisions relating to the management and maintenance of that space.
For a non-resident owner, the electronic-voting route in Article 6 is the difference between participating and being represented by silence — but it has to be set up in advance, in writing and certified.
The quorum rule that rewards attendance
Article 7 is short and consequential.
The assembly decides if more than half of its members are present. Exceptionally, if a quorum is not reached even after two calls for the constitutive session and/or for a session with the same agenda, the assembly decides by a majority of those present.
So a building where most owners are abroad does not become undecidable. It becomes decidable by the minority that attends the third attempt. If your flat is a second home, that single sentence is the reason to arrange representation.
One category of works is carved out entirely: for works on the building that ensure unobstructed access, movement, stay and work for persons with reduced mobility and persons with disabilities, the consent of the unit owners is not required.
| Question | The rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| How many votes does my flat have | one, regardless of size | Art. 6 |
| Two of us own the flat | one vote together, with a written authorised representative | Art. 6 |
| I only own a garage | you vote only on that space | Art. 6 |
| Can I vote from abroad | yes, electronically, after a written and certified statement naming the email address | Art. 6 |
| When can the assembly decide | more than half present | Art. 7 |
| Nobody comes to the meetings | after two failed calls, a majority of those present decides | Art. 7 |
| Accessibility works | no owner consent required | Art. 7 |
Handing the work to a company
Article 8 allows the assembly to secure all or some of the maintenance work by contract with a company, legal person, housing cooperative or entrepreneur registered for maintenance work.
The contract must contain in particular: the types of works and the conditions and manner of performing them; the price and the manner and conditions of payment; the manner of reporting to the assembly on completed work; and the mutual rights and obligations in case of non-performance or late performance.
If that contract is terminated, a new one must be concluded within 30 days.
Article 8 also allows two or more buildings, entrances or lamellas to organise maintenance jointly, in which case a further contract governs how the work is done, how and by when funds are provided, and how spending is reported.
What this changes for a foreign owner
- Find out whether your purchase contract already fixed the maintenance regime. In a tourist zone it can, under Article 5(2) — and it may also have fixed the money, which is a separate article.
- Set up electronic voting before you need it. Article 6 requires a written, certified statement naming the email address; that is not something to arrange in the week of a vote.
- If you co-own with a spouse or sibling, appoint the representative in writing. One special part is one vote, and the authorisation goes to the president of the assembly.
- Do not rely on absence as a veto. After two failed calls, those present decide (Article 7).
- Ask who the manager is and on what contract. That is the next article, and it decides who spends the money.
Where the money actually sits, who may spend it and what report you are entitled to see is a separate question, and the rest of the running costs that reach a new owner are set out in the previous owner's unpaid bills. If your flat's registered area and your contract disagree, that is a different statute again: your contract says 87 m², the cadastre says 82.
Whose side we are on, and how we are paid
The people around a property transaction are mostly paid by the transaction. An agent's commission depends on the sale closing. A developer's sales team works for the developer. A building manager is engaged by the assembly, not by you individually.
We take no commission from sellers, developers, agents or intermediaries — not in any form and not on any file. Our only income is the fee you pay us, and it does not increase if you sign. Telling you not to proceed costs us nothing.
In practice that means we read the transfer contract for the maintenance clause before completion rather than after the first invoice, we set up the representation that lets a non-resident actually vote, and we put "this should not proceed" in writing when that is the answer. Where a matter requires representation before a Montenegrin authority or court, that work is carried out by an advocate admitted to the Montenegrin Bar, with whom we work on the file.
One boundary, and it is not negotiable: we are lawyers, not licensed investment advisers. We do not give personal advice on financial instruments and we do not tell you whether an asset will make money. What we protect is your legal position — title, contract, registration, status, and the deadlines that decide all four.
Before the next assembly meeting
Send us the transfer contract, the building's rules on mutual relations if you have them, and any notice you have received about a meeting. We will tell you what the assembly may decide, what your vote is worth, and how to cast it from abroad. If a deadline is already running, say so when you write.
Statutory provisions are stated as at September 2026 and were read from the consolidated text of the Law on the Maintenance of Residential Buildings, Official Gazette of Montenegro 41/2016, 84/2018, 111/2022 (Constitutional Court decision U-I no. 40/20 of 28 July 2022), 140/2022 and 84/2024. A draft of a new act on the management and maintenance of residential buildings is in preparation and is not law. This page is general information on a statutory regime, not advice on a specific transaction.
