On September 14/15 we invited the consultant Rolf Novy-Huy to help us in our search for the perfect legal basis for our community and its activities. Mr Novy-Huy is the managing director of the trias Foundation, which specialises in supporting innovative and ecological community housing projects (see https://www.stiftung-trias.de). He is an experienced banker and worked for many years at the German social/ecological GLS Bank, so all-in-all he is an expert on the full range of possibilities concerning legal and financial structures for projects such as ours.
This meeting for the whole community was initiated by a small project group which has spent the past six months looking into the issue "Which legal structure(s) could give ZEGG the optimal basis it needs for the future?" When ZEGG was founded over 20 years ago, there were pressing and relevant reasons for registering the project as a "GmbH" - the German equivalent of a limited company. This choice brings both advantages and disadvantages with it, and we decided it was time to carry out a new evaluation and see if it still really does present the best solution. As part of the evaluation, we are considering issues such as cooperatives, financing future construction projects, charitable status, the legal status of a 'Stiftung' (foundation), securing land against speculation, and many more.
During the event with Mr Novy-Huy, we used a group brainstorming technique to open up the topic for all and any relevant issues, channelling these into five thematic working groups for more detailed discussions. Rolf Novy-Huy gave a short, easy-to-understand presentation of various relevant legal structures (e.g. cooperatives, bodies with charitable status, foundations). At the end of the second day, the advantages and disadvantages of the various structures were directly linked to the recommendations and questions raised in the working groups. Interested members of ZEGG then volunteered to join the project group and continue the work on particular topics. As and when tangible results arise from this ongoing project we will let you know!
