How to change the statute and board composition of a ASBL

The Reef
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THe helpdesk of the Moniteur Belge got back to me with the whole process. I confirmed it with a friend of @BaobabUrbain who recently went through it, so I am confident I have gotten it right. Documenting it here for future reference.

Overview

There are two services involved: the Moniteur Belge (MB) and the Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises (BCE). They do not share the same database, and do not talk to each other, so it’s up to us to do the back-and-forth. Which is pretty insane, and not at all how it works in Estonia.

You first inform the MB by going through some bureaucracy. Next, they publish the changes to your ASBL (or company). You then have to take this publication and upload it to the database of the BCE.

Notifying the Moniteur Belge of a change in the ASBL’s data

Here is the text of the mail I received from the helpdesk:

Une demande de publication concernant une modification doit être présentée sur des formulaires types. Vous avez besoin des formulaires I et II pour les sociétés, associations et fondations.

Formulaires

Vous pouvez, par ce lien, télécharger les formulaires dont vous avez besoin.

There are two forms, called I and II (d’oh). I contains ASBL data before the change, and an excerpt from the minutes of the GA that decided the change. II contains ASBL data after the change. In our case, I contains the old board, and II the new board. You also add, separately, a 1-pager with the same excerpt of the GA.

• Formulaire I (en 3 exemplaires):

→ Volet A: remplir

→ Volet B : remplir

→ Volet C: / (uniquement pour une constitution)

• Formulaire II ( Volets : A-C ) :

→ Volet A: remplir

→ Volet B : remplir

→ Volet C: / (uniquement pour une constitution)

• Extrait du procès-verbal de l’assemblée générale (max une feuille A4(

Vous remplissez le volet A et B du formulaire I (vous n’avez pas besoin de la partie C).

Le volet A contient un certain nombre de données d’identification de l’association/entreprise, nécessaires à la facturation.

Dans l’en-tête du volet B vous indiquez les donnéess actuels de l’association /société et le texte avec les modifications que vous souhaitez faire publier.

S’il s’agit d’un changement d’adresse, remplissez les anciens données de l’adresse sur le volet A et dans l’en-tête du volet B. Dans le texte du volet B vous mettez les modifications que vous souhaitez publier. Ce document sera scanné et publié.

En dessous le volet B se trouvent les noms et les fonctions des administrateurs qui représentent légalement l’association ou l’entreprise. Au verso de la dernière feuille du volet B viennent ces mêmes noms et les signatures. Cela implique que vous devez imprimer les formulaires à un côté.

Notice the signatures on the back of the page of section B. EDIT: in case of a change of administrators (demission et nomination d’administrateurs), it is the outgoing administrators (the ones that are currently mentioned by the Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises data) who need to sign.

Le formulaire II contient un volet A et C (destinées au tribunal d’entreprise et aux modifications apportées à la banque Carrefour des entreprises).

Le volet A contient un certain nombre de données d’identification de l’association/entreprise (comme la section A du formulaire de demande I).

S’il s’agit d’un changement d’adresse, remplissez la nouvelle adresse sur ce volet A.

Sur le volet C vous remplissez l’information modifiée. Si nécessaire, vous pouvez simplement laisser vides les champs qui ne sont pas applicable pour vous.

La partie 4 « Administration, représentation et liquidation » vise à fournir les détails des > administrateurs qui démissionnent ou qui sont nommés. Dans la première colonne, choisissez « C » pour un administrateur qui démissionne ou « N » pour un administrateur qui est nommé.

Dans les colonnes suivantes, vous notez le numéro de registre national, le nom et prénom, la fonction (« capacité ») et la date d’entrée en fonction ou de nomination. En dessous du volet C, vous mentionnez la signature de la personne remplissant le formulaire.

Ajoutez à votre dossier un extrait du rapport de l’Assemblée générale contenant les modifications (cela correspond au texte que vous avez mentionné dans le formulaire I, volet B).

We also have to make a payment:

Paiement

Le paiement de la publication est effectué avant la publication. Ce coût est indexé annuellement et peut être payé sur le numéro de compte: BE48 6792 0055 0227 avec le numéro de l’entreprise comme communication. Via ce lien, vous pouvez consulter les tarifs actuels et le mode de paiement: Moniteur belge .

How to submit, pay and where to find the publication

La demande de publication (= les formulaires remplis) doit être soumise par la poste en trois exemplaires avec votre preuve de paiement au greffe du tribunal d’entreprise compétent dans la région de votre association/entreprise. Via ce lien, vous pouvez vérifier à quel tribunal d’entreprise vous devez soumettre vos documents : https://justice.belgium.be/fr/trouver_un_tribunal_ou_parquet .

(But we already know the competent court is the one in Brussels, which is in Forest). Notice that submission is physical: we either send by mail or go in person to the Tribunal de l’entreprise.

Vous pouvez consulter votre publication via ce lien : SOC. COM. - HANDELSVEN.

Notifying the Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises

The website's instructions are, here, but they turn out to be, if not wrong, not necessary

Go here, click on the My Enterprise button and log in via e-ID card. Navigate to the ASBL or company in question (you must be a representative), then click on Ajouter un representant. Fill in the form, then add as evidence the publication on the MB and submit.

The greffe automatically notifies the BCE within 48 hours from submitting the application. To check this, navigate to the BCE’s website, and do a search by name or company number (numéro d’entreprise).

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Happy you went through it @Alberto
Thanks 4 knowledge sharing

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One more ASBL bureucratic complication.

In the form for obtaining a bank account, we need to indicate the NACE code for the applying legal entity. When we registered The Reef, that point was apparently neglected: The Reef ASBL does show up on the registry of the Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises, but with no NACE code.

I did some searching and determined that Habitat de Participation and Samenleven both use the code 94992 (Associations et mouvements pour adultes). That looks like the appropriate one for The Reef too.

According to this source, correcting the NACE code can be done online, with the My Enterprise application, or at any guichet d’entreprise.

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This turns out not to be true, or at least I failed my first attempt. Wrote to the helpdesk. :woman_facepalming:

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The NACE code 94992 was added to the Reef’s official data. The difficulty was due to the fact that, like most statistical bureaus, BCE distinguishes between the legal entity (The Reef ASBL) and the local units (unités d’etablissement) where the entity’s activities actually take place. NACE codes apply to local units rather than legal entities, which is reasonable. So I had first to add a new local unit, with the same address as the legal one, and to that attribute the NACE code.

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For any @reeflings who would be interested in the update of the asbl’s statutes: we have received a couple of examples from Mark, which I saved on the Google Drive in the ASBL folder. I also added a template taken from a website called boutiquedegestion.

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I need three more moves from each of the @reeflings.

  1. Sign digitally the minutes of the GA we held online on 2022-04-17. I have sent them to you via Signrequest. Note that the GA accepts the four of us as full members (one unit each for Ugné + Manuel, one for Lie, one for Alberto).

  2. Send an email to cohousing@thereef.brussels with your application for full membership. Just say you request full membership, and that you have read the statute and the Charte fondatrice and agree with it. If you need inspiration, here is mine:

    To the General Assembly of The Reef ASBL

    This is to confirm my intention to become a full member of The Reef. I have read and understood the association’s statute and charte fondatrice. As a full member, I will contribute to the common work to create the cohousing described in the charte fondatrice, with the intention to, when the time comes, purchase a unit. I will also enjoy the rights and fulfill the duties outlined in articles 5 and 7 of the statute.

    I am Alberto Cottica, resident of Forest, NRE 66.02.08-645.30. My languages are Italian, English, French, Spanish and Dutch, in this order of proficiency.

    Regards,

  3. Make a PDF out of the email, and put it in the Membership applications folder on the workspace.

Step 1 is necessary to notify the Belgian state of our new statute. Steps 2 and 3 fulfill our legal obligation to keep a register of members.

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Thanks a lot @alberto for all that work! I just uploaded my request to the folder.

Question: for the registry of members can it be an option that we kill two birds with one stone, and add some other columns to the sheet? I’m taking of home address (so we don’t have to ask every time we go somewhere), their phone number and email address, people’s nickname on the Edgeryders forum and maybe even dietary requirements?

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Good idea. It is a bit of a GDPR hassle, but I think it is unavoidable. We should then ask people to add a sentence to their application, like “I consent to my name and contact information being added to the ASBL’s members registry.”

UPDATE: I added to the relevant folder a Data protection statement. We must make sure that members know where it is.

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Further update. I have now completed the forms. @manuelpueyo, I need your signature on fomulaire 1; I plan to take the whole thing with me at Salon de l’Habitat Groupé on Sunday. If you want to have a look, the forms are here. Because of the godawful stupid practice of designing forms in Word or similar, with lot of unstable objects like frames and text box, some of the exports into PDF failed, and I even had to fill part of the form by hand :rage:.

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Guys, more bureaucracy! I am going to need front-and-back copies of the ID cards of all former and current board members. That means @Lee and @manuelpueyo. My dossier here must already be 100 pages.

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I’m sorry to hear about all this misery!

I couldn’t find a fitting folder on Nextcloud, so I sent you a copy of my ID by email.

Thanks for taking care of all this!

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At the second try I was able to submit the request to the tribunal des entreprises. It should be no more than 10 working days before the changes are published.

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Yay! Thank you so much again!

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This process is now complete, and the new board shows up in the website of the Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises.

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