The assembly votes. Between votes, one person or company does everything — holds the building's bank account, decides that a leak is urgent, hires the contractor, and answers for the money afterwards. That is the upravnik, the building manager, and the Law on the Maintenance of Residential Buildings gives the office more power over your money than most foreign owners expect.
It also answers the question owners in half-empty coastal buildings ask most often: what if we never appoint one.
Who may be the manager
Article 14 is deliberately wide. The manager may be a unit owner or another natural person, a company, another legal person, a housing cooperative, or an entrepreneur registered for the business of managing and maintaining residential buildings.
Then a rule that quietly professionalises the role: if a natural person is elected manager by more than one assembly, that person is obliged to register as an entrepreneur for managing and maintaining residential buildings.
So the neighbour who manages one building may do so as a private individual. The neighbour who manages three is running a business and must be registered as one. Article 26 backs this with registers kept by the local authority — a register of unit owners, a register of buildings and their special parts, and a register of managers.
The assembly's side of this is set out in how decisions get made: under Article 5a it both elects and dismisses the manager and may instead select a professional manager.
What the manager controls
Three powers matter to an owner.
The money. Article 18 provides that the funds intended for maintenance are used for regular maintenance, necessary works, urgent works, repayment of a loan taken to finance those costs, and other maintenance costs — and that the manager disposes of those funds. Article 19 obliges the manager to open the building's joint account.
Urgent works. Article 12 obliges the manager to ensure urgent works are carried out without delay — and, notably, to ensure they are carried out on a special part of the building too where the owner of that part does not do them. Which works count as urgent is a separate question, examined in urgent works: who decides, who pays.
The account of what was done. Article 21 requires the manager to keep records of the use of maintenance funds and to submit a written report to the assembly within 30 days of completing larger regular works, necessary works and urgent works, as well as an annual report. The report must contain the works performed, their prices and the state of the account. The assembly adopts it and publishes it on the building's notice board, and every unit owner has the right to inspect it.
That is your entitlement as an owner: not a courtesy summary, but a report with prices and a balance, published where you can read it.
Entrusting the work, and the 30-day rule
Article 8 lets the assembly secure all or part of the maintenance by contract with a company, legal person, housing cooperative or registered entrepreneur. The contract must set out the types of works and the conditions and manner of performing them, the price and payment terms, the manner of reporting to the assembly, and the mutual rights and obligations on non-performance or late performance.
If that contract is terminated, a new one must be concluded within 30 days. Two or more buildings, entrances or lamellas may also organise maintenance jointly under a further contract.
When the manager leaves
Article 21 also governs the handover, and the deadlines are short.
A manager whose mandate has ended must notify the competent local authority within 10 days of the mandate ending. And within seven days of the mandate ending, the outgoing manager must deliver to the newly appointed manager, or to the president of the assembly, or to the local authority — beginning with a report on the funds in the joint account.
For a buyer, this is the practical question to ask before completion: is there a manager, when does the mandate end, and has the last report been published.
If the owners never organise themselves
This is the situation in many second-home buildings, and the statute does not leave it open.
Article 22: if the unit owners have not formed management organs in accordance with the law, the competent local authority is obliged to appoint a temporary manager — on the request of one or more unit owners, or ex officio. The temporary manager may be a unit owner, another natural person, or a company or legal person registered for managing and maintaining residential buildings.
The appointment decision must be delivered to the housing inspector within seven days. The temporary manager is appointed for up to three months. Remuneration is set by the local authority and charged to the building's regular maintenance funds, in line with what is usually paid for managers of buildings with the same or a similar number of units.
And a collection rule that shows the legislator anticipated buildings with no account at all: if the building's joint account has not been opened, the temporary manager may collect the claim for management services performed within one year of learning that the account was opened, or within two years of its opening.
Article 22a then sets out what the temporary manager must do. Convene the assembly's session to constitute it within 15 days of appointment. If the constitutive session fails for want of a quorum, the temporary manager must, when issuing the second call, warn the owners of the consequences of failing to constitute the assembly. If the second session also lacks a quorum, decisions are taken by a majority of those present.
The constitutive assembly then decides in particular on: electing the manager and the president of the assembly; how maintenance work is organised; determining the value of the point used to calculate contributions; the name of the building and the making of its seal; and opening the joint account. It also considers and adopts the proposed contract between the assembly and the manager, and the rules on mutual relations between owners.
| Situation | What the statute does | Source |
|---|---|---|
| No management organs formed | local authority must appoint a temporary manager, on request or ex officio | Art. 22 |
| How long a temporary manager serves | up to three months | Art. 22 |
| Who pays the temporary manager | the local authority sets the fee, charged to maintenance funds | Art. 22 |
| No joint account exists | claim collectable within 1 year of learning of opening, or 2 years from opening | Art. 22 |
| First meeting has no quorum | second call must warn of the consequences | Art. 22a |
| Second meeting has no quorum | majority of those present decides | Art. 22a |
| Manager's mandate ends | notify local authority in 10 days; hand over within 7 days | Art. 21 |
What to ask before and after you buy
- Is there a manager, and is it a person or a registered entrepreneur? A natural person managing more than one building must be registered (Article 14).
- Has the joint account been opened? Article 19 puts that duty on the manager; a building without one is a building where costs are being handled informally.
- Ask for the last report. Article 21 entitles every owner to inspect it, and it must show works, prices and the account balance.
- Check whether a temporary manager is in office. That is a three-month state of affairs, not a permanent arrangement (Article 22).
- Find out when the mandate ends. The handover deadlines are seven and ten days, and a gap is where records go missing.
Where the money comes from, how the monthly amount is calculated and what happens to your contributions when you sell is the next article in this series. The wider set of running costs that follow a purchase is in the previous owner's unpaid bills.
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 — and in a tourist-zone building may have been proposed by the investor.
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 ask for the manager's contract and the last published report before completion rather than after, we check whether the joint account exists at all, 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 you rely on the building being managed
Send us the building's details, the manager's contract if you have it, and the last report published on the notice board. We will tell you whether the building is managed as the statute requires, what you are entitled to see, and what to do if there is no manager at all. 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.
