Condomínio accounts in Brazil: what and when

The prestação de contas is the moment the síndico shows owners what came in, what went out and what is left. People who search for a "prestação de contas do condomínio modelo" usually expect a standard form. What the law gives is smaller and more useful than that: one duty, an assembly that approves, and consequences if the duty is not met. The rest, what the pack contains, is decided inside the condomínio.

The síndico's duty

The Civil Code lists what falls to the síndico, and one item is giving accounts to the assembly "annually and when demanded" (art. 1.348, VIII). That is two obligations in one sentence:

• Annually. Without having to be asked.
• When demanded. The assembly can ask for the accounts outside the yearly cycle.

The same list puts two neighboring duties next to it that feed the accounts: preparing the income and expense budget for each year (item VI) and collecting the owners' contributions and fines (item VII). What the síndico accounts for is, in effect, how the budget he or she proposed was carried out.

When: the annual assembly

Article 1.350 says the síndico shall convene, every year, a meeting of the owners' assembly, "in the form provided in the convenção", to approve the expense budget, the owners' contributions and the prestação de contas, and possibly to elect a substitute and change the regimento interno.

Two details matter in practice:

• The law says "annually" and does not name a month. The article gives neither a number of days nor a date. How to convene and the actual calendar come from the convenção. If someone says accounts "are due in March", that is a rule of the condomínio, not of the Civil Code.
• If the síndico does not convene, the owners can. A quarter of them may do so (art. 1.350, § 1). If the assembly does not meet, a judge decides at the request of any owner (§ 2).

The síndico, or a quarter of the owners, can also call extraordinary assemblies (art. 1.355), which is the natural route when the assembly demands accounts outside the cycle.

Who checks: the conselho fiscal

The Civil Code says there "may be" a conselho fiscal, three members elected by the assembly for no more than two years, whose job is to give an opinion on the síndico's accounts (art. 1.356). Because it is optional, many condomínios have none. Where one exists, its opinion gives the assembly a second reading beyond the síndico's own, and is worth presenting alongside the figures.

What happens when the accounts do not come

Article 1.349 lets an assembly specially called for the purpose remove a síndico "who commits irregularities, does not give accounts, or does not manage the condomínio properly", by absolute majority of its members. For a professional síndico, or an administradora providing the service, it is the most concrete reason to keep the accounts ready and documented at all times.

What the law leaves open

The Civil Code articles on the condomínio edilício contain no list of documents and no format for the prestação de contas. Nor do they set a notice period for making the figures available. What the convenção and the regimento interno say, and what the assembly requires, is what counts.

Lei 4.591/1964, which the Civil Code did not expressly repeal (art. 2.045), lists among the síndico's tasks giving accounts to the assembly and keeping the condomínio's documents for five years for any accounting check (art. 22, § 1, items f and g). How far those articles apply alongside the Code is a question for the condomínio's lawyer.

A pack that can be checked

Because the format is free, what makes the assembly accept the accounts is that they can be checked. A pack that tends to work:

1. Summary of the period. Income and expenses for the year, in categories owners recognise (staff, water and energy, maintenance, administration).
2. Budgeted versus actual. The budget approved at the previous assembly next to what was spent, with the material differences explained.
3. Collection and inadimplência. How much was billed, how much was paid and which units are overdue, with the total outstanding.
4. Fundo de reserva, kept separate. The period's contribution, the balance and what was withdrawn. See what to say about the fundo de reserva.
5. Statements and receipts. Bank statements for the period and the receipts behind the expenses, open to anyone who wants to check.
6. The conselho fiscal's opinion, if there is one.
7. Open items. Works under way, contracts to renew, proceedings pending.

Agree with the assembly, once, what goes into this pack and in what format, and record it in the minutes. From then on the "model" is whatever the condomínio itself approved.

The assembly can be electronic

Unless the convenção forbids it, the assembly that approves the accounts can be convened, held and voted electronically, as long as owners keep their rights to speak, to debate and to vote (Civil Code art. 1.354-A, added by Lei 14.309/2022). The notice must say it is electronic and include the instructions for access, participation and vote collection; the minutes are drawn up only after all votes are counted and announced; and the assembly can be hybrid. The agenda documents, including the accounts pack itself, can be provided on paper or electronically.

A survey in the app does not do this on its own. The meeting still has to be convened with what the convenção and art. 1.354-A require, and the video call runs on a separate platform such as Zoom or Meet.

How Unitify helps with this routine

Unitify does not keep the condomínio's books and does not replace the síndico in checking the numbers. What it handles is the repetitive work that comes before the accounts:

• In Easybilly, the charges, boletos and payments of each apartment sit in one record, and each charge, such as the taxa condominial and the contribution to the fundo de reserva, can appear as its own line. Payments received outside the app (Pix, boleto bancário) enter the record by spreadsheet import and are reconciled with the units. That is what lets you show what was billed and inadimplência without stitching together spreadsheets from different sources.
• In the resident app, announcements carry the assembly notice and documents to every resident.
• With votes and surveys, the síndico can sound out owners on an item of the accounts before the assembly. The survey informs; the assembly's validity still depends on the convenção and the law.
• Data already in Excel or bank statements can be sent to the free reports tool to produce a first draft of the report, which the síndico reviews before presenting.

To see what a condomínio's billing record looks like, see the Brazil page or book a demo.