The board of directors of a housing cooperative represents the heart of the organization’s corporate governance. This collegiate body, democratically elected by cooperative members, assumes the responsibility of directing, supervising, and ensuring the proper functioning of the community. Understanding its roles and responsibilities is essential both for those who serve on the board and for the cooperative members themselves. In this article, personalHOME explains the seven most important aspects of the roles and responsibilities of the board of directors in housing cooperatives:
Composition and Structure
The board of directors of a cooperative includes essential roles such as the president (legal representative and coordinator), the secretary (responsible for documentation and communications), and the treasurer (in charge of finances). Depending on the size of the cooperative and the type of project, it may include additional members assigned to specific areas such as urban development, maintenance, or community relations.
Financial Responsibilities
The board of directors of a cooperative has crucial financial responsibilities that include preparing realistic annual budgets that balance affordable fees with long-term sustainability; maintaining absolute transparency through accurate accounting records, audits, and understandable reports in which every expense is justified; and managing potential delinquency within the cooperative.
Maintenance and Preservation of Assets
This key body must manage building maintenance through preventive plans that cover everything from routine tasks such as cleaning common areas, gardening, or inspections to larger projects such as façade rehabilitation or modernization of installations. This proactive management preserves asset value, prevents costly future problems, and requires establishing priorities, requesting estimates, supervising work, and ensuring appropriate quality standards.
Legal and Regulatory Compliance
Housing cooperatives are governed by a complex legal framework that includes the General Law on Cooperatives (Law 27/1999, of July 16), specific regional legislation, horizontal property regulations, and urban planning requirements, among others. The board of directors is responsible for ensuring compliance with all these rules, which includes keeping legal documentation up to date, submitting tax filings, meeting safety and accessibility obligations, and responding to administrative requirements.
Conflict Management and Community Relations
The board of directors plays a crucial role as mediator in neighborhood conflicts arising from community living, addressing disputes related to noise, common spaces, or pets, to name a few examples. This responsibility requires impartiality, dialogue skills, and the ability to establish and enforce community rules fairly and consistently, resorting to external mediation or legal action when circumstances require it.
Communication with Members
Effective communication must be ensured by maintaining clear information channels regarding decisions, finances, and relevant projects. The board also has the fundamental responsibility of convening and organizing well-prepared general assemblies, which function as democratic spaces where members can express themselves, participate in important decisions, and demand transparency, thus enabling constructive debate and proper accountability.
Hiring and Supervision of Services
Boards of directors of cooperatives must hire and supervise external service providers (administrators, cleaning, maintenance, security, gardening) through transparent processes, negotiating favorable contracts, and periodically evaluating their performance to decide whether to continue with them. Although they may collaborate with professional administrators, the board always retains the final authority and responsibility over these services.
The Board of Directors is the democratic engine of the housing cooperative, ensuring its proper governance. By acting with transparency and maintaining effective communication with members, the Board guarantees sustainability, the value of shared assets, and the cooperative’s social purpose. At personalHOME, experts in construction projects for housing cooperatives, we advise members on the composition and appointment of roles and responsibilities of the future board of directors to improve efficiency in its management.
