Confirming the joint property management association’s statutes

The association adopts the statutes or changes to the statutes at the meeting of the shareholders. Changes to the statutes must be supported by at least 2/3 of the votes cast and 1/3 of the shareholders who took part in the vote.

An objection may be filed against the decisions of the meeting of a non-organised association by bringing an action against the association in a district court within 60 days of the decision being made. The association may apply for confirmation of the statutes after the appeal period has elapsed and no one has brought an action against the decisions of the meeting. 

A shareholder may file a request for an administrative review of a decision of the meeting of an organised association within 21 days of the decision being taken. If the decision is not reviewed, the shareholder may bring an action within 30 days of receipt of the decision on the request for an administrative review. Further provisions on the procedures for requesting an administrative review and the time limits for bringing an action are laid down in sections 23 and 23a of the Joint Property Act. 

 

The joint property management association must draw up statutes for its activities. Under the Joint Property Act, the statutes of an organised association must include at least the following:

1. name and domicile of the association and the joint property or special benefit belonging to the association
2. composition and term of office of the committee
3. who has the right to sign for the association
4. when the ordinary general meeting of the association is held and what matters are discussed at the meeting
5. grounds for the collection of any fees from the shareholders
6. how the association organise the auditing of the association’s finances and administration
7. duration of the association’s financial year and when the financial statements are to be prepared
8. how the meetings of the association are convened and how other communications are delivered to the shareholders
9. other matters necessary for the management of the association’s affairs and activities.

The association may specify in its statutes that instead of the meeting of the association, the decision-making powers are exercised by a board of representatives. In such cases, the statutes must state the number and term of office of the representatives and their substitutes and the method of their election.

For more detailed information, please see the 'Important instructions and advice for drawing up statutes' section on this page.

Particular attention should be paid to the following issues when drawing up statutes. 

Convening a meeting of a joint property management association

Under the Act on Jointly Owned Areas, a joint property management association has different options for convening a meeting of the association: 

Meeting invitation by letter

• The starting point of the statutes of the Act on Jointly Owned Areas concerning meeting invitations is that all shareholders must be informed of the meeting held by the joint property management association. The meeting of the association is to be convened by means of a meeting invitation that is sent to all shareholders. The invitation can be sent by letter or electronic means (e.g. by email).
• If the association uses an electronic means of communication (e.g. email) to send a meeting invitation, its shareholders must be provided with the option of receiving the invitation by letter if they are not able to receive the invitation by any electronic means. 

Meeting invitation in a newspaper

• Instead of sending invitations by letter, a joint property management association's meeting can be announced in a newspaper. In this case, the invitation must also be sent by letter to shareholders living in another municipality whose addresses are known to the association. The invitation may also be sent by electronic means (e.g. by email) if the shareholder has provided their contact details, such as an email address, for this purpose. It would be useful to mention in the statutes the newspaper in which the notice is published, or that the meeting of the association decides where the invitation will be published.
• A joint property management association's statutes cannot specify that a shareholder who resides in another municipality must separately request an invitation. An invitation must be sent to the shareholders living in another municipality if the shareholder's address is known to the joint property management association.

Meeting invitation on the association's website

•  Contrary to the above, the invitation to the meeting of a joint property management association may be issued by publishing the invitation on the joint property management association's website. 
•  The website must have general access (on a public information network). The invitation may not be published solely, for example, in a social media group that requires logging in. 
•  The address of the joint property management association's website must be mentioned in the statutes. The website must exist when applying for adoption of statutes.
• Shareholders who do not use the information network or electronic communication channels must still have the opportunity to receive an invitation by letter or in another manner specified in the statutes. 

Committee

• The meeting of the association elects the members and personal deputy members of the committee. Each member of the committee must have a personal deputy. The committee elects a chairperson and a vice-chair from among its members. The meeting of the association may not elect the chairperson of the committee. 
• Decision-making powers may be transferred to the committee in matters of minor importance that have been defined and sufficiently specified in the statutes. Such matters can include, for example, statements or consents given on behalf of the association. The statutes cannot be used to transfer any decision-making powers to the committee on other matters not specified in the statutes. Unspecified decision-making powers cannot be transferred to the Committee even in urgent matters if the decision concerns a matter that is the responsibility of the general meeting of the association.
• In its policies on decision-making, the Regional State Administrative Agency has deemed any statutes unlawful that provide committees with the power to make decisions on other matters of minor importance, if these matters have not been specified in detail. 

Joint property

• A joint property management association can manage only one joint property unit, and each association must have its own statutes. We will not adopt shared statutes for several different joint property units.
• The joint property unit belonging to the association is defined in the association's statutes by means of a land register code.

Accounting and accounting period

• A joint property management association's financial period can be at most 4 years. However, a joint property management association is responsible for organising its financial management and accounting so that its activities comply with the law and meet the conditions set by authorities. Further provisions on the accounting obligation are laid down in the Accounting Act. (Accounting Act (1336/1997) e.g. chapter 1, sections 1 and 4, chapter 3, section 6). 
• The interval between a joint property management association's general meetings can be no longer than four years. The joint property management association's financial period and the interval between meetings do not have to be the same. In other words, the intervals between meetings may be four years, even if the association's financial period is one year, and the association provides its financial statements in accordance with the Accounting Act within 4 months of the end of the financial period.

Other matters to be noted

• The statutes and changes to them must be drawn up so that they form a cohesive document. We always process the full set of statutes and not, for example, only changes to the statutes. 
• The activities and administration of joint property management associations are governed by the Act on Jointly Owned Areas. The Associations Act or the Cooperatives Act cannot be applied to the activities of a joint property management association. 
• The statutes may stipulate that participants can also attend the meeting remotely. This can be done, for example, with a technical solution that enables a voice or visual connection or by email. The shareholder must have the right to attend the meeting at a physical meeting venue, even if it were possible to attend the meeting remotely.

The statues will enter into force once the Regional State Administrative Agency has confirmed them and the decision has become final. The decision becomes final after the 30-day appeal period has expired and the decision has not been appealed. The appeal period starts from the receipt of the decision.

The Regional State Administrative Agency does not confirm the statues of an joint property management association if the statues are in some respects contrary to the Joint Property Act or if they may cause harm to a shareholder. In such a case, the statues will not enter into force.

In its decision, the Regional State Administrative Agency explains the extent to which the statues are contrary to the law. If the association subsequently amends its statues, the amended statues must be re-adopted at a meeting of the association. It is only after this that the association can send the statues again to the Regional State Administrative Agency for confirmation.

The joint property management association may request for a judicial review of a decision of the Regional State Administrative Agency by appealing to the administrative court. The administrative court is determined by the judicial district of the administrative court in which the majority of the association’s property is located. Appeal instructions are sent with every decision. The appeal period is 30 days from the date of receipt of the decision. 

The joint property management association must submit a written application to the Regional State Administrative Agency. The application may be sent 60 days after the adoption of the statutes at a meeting, if the decisions of the meeting have not been appealed. You can use our application form (see the Forms section on this page). You can also send your application without using the form. 

In the application, specify the applicant’s contact details and the invoicing details of the joint property management association.

Send the following supporting documents with your application:

• Statutes adopted at the meeting of the association.
• A copy of the minutes of the meeting at which the statutes of the association were adopted. It must be clear from the signed minutes that the association’s meeting decided to adopt the statutes. 
• Evidence that the decisions of the association’s meeting are final. The evidence may be based on a note from a district court or an affirmation by the person exercising the association’s right to sign that no request for an administrative review has been filed or no action brought in the district court against the decisions of the meeting. The association must contact the district court to check whether any actions have been brought against it.

Send the application and the supporting documents:

• by email to [email protected]
• by post to: Regional State Administrative Agency for Western and Inland Finland, PO Box 5, 13035 AVI.

We charge a fee for processing a matter concerning the confirmation of the statutes of a joint property management association. The fee is EUR 130. The charge is the same irrespective of whether the statutes are confirmed or not. If you cancel your application, we will charge a proportion of the fee corresponding to the workload. 

The application may include a separate invoicing address to which the invoice for the fee will be sent.

The invoice will be sent afterwards via the Finnish Government Shared Services Centre for Finance and HR in Joensuu.

You must inform the Regional State Administrative Agency and the National Land Survey of Finland of the names and contact details of the chairperson and vice-chair of the joint property management association. Send the new details every time your chairperson changes. (Act on Jointly Owned Areas, section 33)

You can submit the information to the Regional State Administrative Agency

• by email to kirjaamo.lansi(at)avi.fi  
• by post to the Regional State Administrative Agency for Western and Inland Finland, PO Box 5, 13035 AVI
• via a form you can find under links to forms on this page 
• via a free-form notification. 

Include the name and land register code of your association in the notice. 

A joint property management association for shared waters must also inform the fisheries area of the associations name, property ID, address and bank account. (Fishing Act, section 84)

However, the Regional State Administrative Agency does not have model statutes. The website of the Federation of Finnish Fisheries Associations provides various model documents for the joint owners. The Federation has also drawn up model statues for joint property management associations.

The statutes of joint property management associations and the decisions confirming them are public documents. You can send a request for documents to the registry of the Regional State Administrative Agency ([email protected]).

The Regional State Administrative Agency keeps decisions and statutes from the beginning of the period when the Regional State Administrative Agency took over the processing, i.e. matters initiated since 1 October 2011. Decisions made by earlier authorities have not been transferred to the Regional State Administrative Agency. Earlier confirmed rules and confirmation decisions can be requested from the previous authorities. Before the Regional State Administrative Agency, the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment processed these matters. 

There is no register of organised joint property management associations. The Regional State Administrative Agency cannot provide a register extract on the organisation of a joint property management association.

A decision by the Regional State Administrative Agency or by a previous authority on the confirmation of statutes and the attached rules approved by the joint property management association verify that the association has been organised. 

By submitting a request for documents, you can get access to the decision on the confirmation of statutes of a joint property management association, alongside said statutes, from the time the Regional State Administrative Agency has been responsible for the task. You can submit a request for matters that have been initiated since 1 October 2011. For information about joint property management associations organised before that, you can reach out to other authorities. Before the Regional State Administrative Agency, the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment processed these matters.

A joint property management association can become a non-organised association if it decides to do so at its meeting in accordance with section 15 of the Joint Property Act. You should inform the Regional State Administrative Agency and the National Land Survey of Finland of your decision to become non-organised. You can send the information to the Regional State Administrative Agency by email [email protected] or by post to the address of the Regional State Administrative Agency for Western and Inland Finland. Include the name and land register code of your association in the notice. 

To inform the National Land Survey of Finland of your association becoming non-organised, use the form on the Survey’s website.

 

There is no register of the names of association signatories. The statutes of the joint property management association must state who has the right to sign for the association. So the right to sign is included in the statutes and in the minutes of the meetings at which the persons were elected to the duties in question. 

You can get the contact details, if the joint property management association has informed the Regional State Administrative Agency of them. The land register has more comprehensive contact details, and you can contact the National Land Survey of Finland for them.

No, the Regional State Administrative Agency cannot supervise these associations. The Regional State Administrative Agency may only, upon application, confirm the statutes of joint property management associations.

If a shareholder thinks that the decision of the association or committee has not been made in due order, is otherwise contrary to the law or regulations, or violates the shareholder’s rights, the shareholder may either bring an action against the association in a district court or, if the association is organised, file a request for an administrative review. 

The Regional State Administrative Agency cannot issue orders or instructions to joint property management associations. 

You can contact the Federation of Finnish Fisheries Associations to ask advice on the activities of these associations. One of the tasks of the Federation of Finnish Fisheries Associations and its member organisations is to promote the activities of joint property management associations that own waters. You can find the Federation’s contact details on the website of the Federation of Finnish Fisheries Associations.

 

Shared waters cannot have both a joint property management association and a fishery association. 

The Joint Property Act and the Fishing Act were amended as of 1 January 2001. As a result, joint property management associations and fishery associations that were operating in shared waters have merged into joint property management associations. The statutes of the fishery associations were first in force in the joint property management associations until they were amended to comply with the Joint Property Act. If the statues are in conflict with the Act, the Joint Property Act will prevail.

The Regional State Administrative Agency uses the property identifier of the jointly owned property as the joint property management association’s identifier. The Business ID (Business Identity Code) is a code issued to businesses and organisations by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office or the Finnish Tax Administration. 

The need for a Business ID is based on the association’s activities. If necessary, the instructions for applying for a Business ID for an association can be found e.g. on the website of the Federation of Finnish Fisheries Associations. 

For questions concerning applications for the confirmation of the statutes of joint property management associations, contact us by email ([email protected]) or by phone:

• Kirsi Mäenpää, Inspector, tel. +358 2295 018 518 (contact primarily) and
• Anu Lassus, Inspector, tel. +358 295 018 793.