Owners’ association: the complete guide

When must an owners’ association be formed, and who are its members?

Under the law, once the owners of subdivided units in a shared property number three or more, they must form an owners’ association and register it with the Real Estate General Authority; today registration is done on the Mullak electronic platform. The association gains its own legal personality and separate finances only once it is registered. In complexes of several properties, the law also allows a “complex association” of representatives from each property’s association.

Membership follows ownership, not residence: every unit owner is a member of the general assembly, and buying a unit in a property that has an owners’ association counts as accepting its bylaws and committing to its general assembly’s decisions. When several people co-own one unit, they choose one person to represent them. A tenant is a resident, not a member, and the owner stays answerable to the association unless agreed otherwise.

The registration steps and documents are covered in how to establish an owners’ association.

How is an owners’ association run?

The law and its implementing regulation set out the association’s bodies and leave many details to the bylaws that the owners approve. Four roles matter most:

The owners’ general assembly

It is made up of all the owners and holds the highest authority: it approves the annual budget, appoints the property manager and, where required, the auditor, reviews the manager’s report and the financial statements, and amends the bylaws. It meets at least once a year, and the law, the regulation and the bylaws set its quorum and voting rules.

The association’s chairman

The general assembly elects the chairman from among its members for a renewable term set by the law; the chairman calls its meetings and coordinates with the manager. In everyday speech this is the “union chairman”. Some unions add owners who help the chairman, with powers that depend on the bylaws. For the chairman’s duties in detail, read the owners’ association chairman’s duties.

The property manager

The manager handles day-to-day management: arranging services and maintenance, collecting contributions, spending within the approved budget, and representing the association. The manager may be one of the owners or an outside party, such as a property-management company, as the bylaws decide.

The bylaws

The bylaws are the association’s constitution and a condition of its registration. They set the rules for the general assembly and the manager, the use and management of the common parts, how owners’ contributions are calculated and paid, the financial year, and how the bylaws are amended and the association dissolved.

What does an owners’ association do day to day?

Beyond the annual meetings, an association’s real work is small daily tasks that add up, and they are what owners and residents feel directly:

• Maintenance: repairing lifts, lighting and leaks, and servicing tanks, pumps and fire systems on schedule.
• Cleaning: cleaning entrances, corridors, stairs and car parks, and collecting waste from the common parts.
• Security: guards, gates and cameras, and managing how visitors and vehicles come in.
• Shared facilities: running the pool, the hall, the courts and the gardens, and setting fair rules for using and booking them.
• Money: preparing the budget, collecting owners’ contributions, paying contracts and bills, and keeping owners informed.
• Rules: applying the bylaws and the general assembly’s decisions to everyone, such as no facade changes without approval.

Owners’ rights and obligations

The relationship between an owner and the association is balanced: the association may not restrict an owner’s right to their unit, and an owner may not walk away from their share of the costs.

An owner’s rights

• To sell, rent and use their unit, and to use the common parts for their intended purpose without harming others.
• To attend the general assembly and vote in it as the bylaws provide.
• To see the budget, the financial statements and the manager’s report, which the law requires to be sent to owners.
• To benefit from the association’s services and facilities on an equal footing with the other owners.

An owner’s obligations

• To pay their share of management and maintenance costs, which the law calculates by unit area unless provided otherwise; giving up their share of the common parts does not release them from paying.
• To maintain their unit so it does not harm the property, and to allow work needed for the building’s safety.
• To follow the bylaws and the general assembly’s decisions, and not to change the property’s exterior without its approval.

Common owners’ association problems, and how to avoid them

Most disputes in owners’ associations do not start from bad faith but from missing information. These are the most frequent problems, with what prevents them:

• Owners paying late: it falls when every owner knows their amount, its due date and what it is spent on, and the regulatory framework offers tools to pursue defaulters. The details are in owners’ association fees.
• Disputes between owners: over bookings, noise or how costs are split; they calm down when the rules are written in advance and applied to everyone the same way.
• Poor communication: a fault report lost in a chat group, an owner who does not know what the board decided, a resident who does not know whom to ask.
• Data lost when the management changes: the owner list, contracts and correspondence sit on a former chairman’s phone or in a spreadsheet on their laptop, so the new chairman starts from scratch.

How does technology help?

Many associations use the Mullak platform for statutory procedures such as registration, voting and certificates, but the daily work of reports, bookings and follow-up needs an operational tool that keeps everything in the association’s name, not one person’s. When every report has a number and a status, every booking a clear rule, and all the data one home, most of the problems above disappear before they start.

Where to go after this guide

This guide is a general introduction; each topic in it has a detailed guide in the Jiwar guides library:

• Owners’ association law in Saudi Arabia: the law, its implementing regulation and their key provisions.
• How to establish an owners’ association: the steps to form one and register it on Mullak.
• The owners’ association chairman’s duties: the chairman’s responsibilities and how to carry them out.
• Owners’ association fees: how contributions are calculated and collected.
• Owners’ union vs owners’ association: the two terms and where they come from.