VvE Extension Permission - Legal Advice

Questioner

Hopefully you can help us. We live on the ground floor in Amsterdam within a VVE of more than 100 homes. We have asked our VVE for permission to realize an extension on our garden side of 4 meters deep over the entire width of our home. Our garden is 15 meters deep, so this is permit-free. At the annual meeting of 2015 it was decided that the VVE wants to draw up conditions on the basis of which permission can be granted. A survey has now been sent out for this purpose, which states that an extension is permitted by the municipality and is permit-free (under certain conditions), but that the VVE can also impose additional conditions, and that this survey is therefore about that. One of the conditions of the VVE is that all extensions that may be realized in our VVE must always be 4 meters, for uniformity. Now we hear around us that various VVE members have difficulty with those four meters, and may only agree to 2.5 or 3 meters. We don't want that, because we want to make our living room in the extension and 2.5 or 3 meters is very small. If there is no majority yes now, the conditions will be discussed and determined at the upcoming annual meeting. Our question is: if the majority votes against the 4 meters, can the VVE then impose a condition during the meeting that the extension may only be allowed if it is smaller, e.g. 2.5 meters?

Lawyer

If you do not agree with the decision of the VvE, you can always submit the case to a judge and have him make a decision. What he will say is never predictable, but it would always be worth a try.