Keeping your co-ownership accounts yourself in Belgium

Can I really keep our building's accounts myself, here in Belgium, without a professional syndic or an accountant? It is the first question a newly elected volunteer syndic asks the moment the previous one hands over the folders. The answer is reassuring: yes, the law expressly allows it. What you actually have to do comes down to a single number. A co-ownership with fewer than twenty lots may keep simplified accounts; from twenty lots up, normalised accounting based on a minimum standardised chart of accounts becomes mandatory.

That threshold drives almost everything: how much work you take on, which books you must keep and whether a simple journal will do or you need a full chart of accounts. And most of Belgium's building stock is made up of small co-ownerships. For most volunteers, then, the job stays well within reach.

Can a co-owner really do the accounting themselves?

Yes. Every association of co-owners (the VME in Flanders, the ACP in Wallonia) must keep accounts, but nothing requires a chartered accountant or a professional syndic to do it. It is one of the syndic's duties and that syndic can perfectly well be a co-owner serving the mandate unpaid: the volunteer syndic. The Act of 18 June 2018, in force since 1 January 2019, modernised co-ownership accounting rules and scaled them to the size of the building.

What the law asks for is not a diploma but discipline: figures that add up, documents you can produce and a clean line between the association's money and the owners'. The auditor the assembly appoints checks those documents every year, not your command of accounting jargon.

Simplified or normalised accounting: which one applies to you?

Everything turns on those twenty lots.

Below the line, simplified accounting is enough: a journal in which you record every receipt and payment in date order, plus a numbered, documented statement of the association's assets and debts. Two documents, no more, manageable on a tidy spreadsheet or with a co-ownership management software such as Vecinly, which orders the journal and the supporting records for you.

In practice you keep at least these records:

• a journal listing every receipt and every payment, in order
• a numbered and documented statement of the VME's assets and debts
• from twenty lots up: a full chart of accounts and an annual balance sheet

Once the building reaches twenty lots, the law requires normalised accounting built on a minimum standardised chart of accounts: a structured account plan and a balance sheet, with fixed headings so every co-ownership records its figures the same way. More structure, but more clarity on larger budgets. Why the threshold? The legislator wanted the administrative burden to match the size of the building. The classic rookie mistake is the building that has just crept over the line (a new subdivision, an added unit) and carries on with the old cash book. Recount your lots whenever the structure changes: cross twenty and you switch over the following financial year.

Two separate accounts: working capital and reserve fund

Here the law leaves no room. The VME must hold two separate bank accounts in its own name: one for the working capital (the money for the year's running costs) and one for the reserve fund, the pot for major works. Running the co-ownership's money through your personal account, or a third party's, is forbidden. No exceptions.

Why so strict? Because mixing the funds is the shortest road to suspicion and dispute. Put everything in one account and no one can tell the savings from the money meant to pay the cleaning firm. A tip from the field: open both accounts in the VME's name in the first week of the mandate, before you settle a single invoice.

The reserve fund: why 5% is the floor

The reserve fund is anything but optional. Since 2019, article 3.86 of the Civil Code has required every association to top it up each year with at least 5% of the previous financial year's ordinary common charges. The assembly can waive that contribution only by a four-fifths majority, a high bar.

The reasoning is thrifty common sense. A roof, a façade or a lift lasts for decades and then fails one day, and the bill is steep. A well-stocked reserve fund spreads that blow over the years instead of landing it on the owners all at once through an unexpected capital call. For the do-it-yourself manager it comes down to one habit: every year, transfer that fixed percentage of the ordinary charges to the reserve account and leave it there.

Keeping your co-ownership accounts yourself in Belgium is no grey area: it is a framed duty you can handle without a professional, as long as you pick the right version. Count your lots, keep the journal and the statement neatly (or the full chart of accounts if your building is large enough) split working capital and reserve fund across two accounts and feed the reserve fund every year. Do it consistently and no auditor will have a word to say, while your building keeps every euro in-house.

Information updated. This article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice.