Acquisition of membership

(1) Membership is acquired by an unconditional declaration of accession in text form and admission of the accession by the cooperative; the statutes may prescribe written form for the declaration of accession. Before making the declaration of accession, the applicant must be given a copy of the statutes in their version in force from time to time; it suffices where the statutes are retrievable on the internet at the cooperative's address and the applicant is offered a printout of the statutes. A power of attorney to make the declaration of accession requires text form. In the case of founding members, membership may be acquired by signing the statutes instead of by a declaration of accession.
(2) The member must be entered in the list of members without delay, and notified of this without delay. Where the cooperative refuses admission, it must notify the applicant of this without delay. In addition to the notification under the second sentence, in the case of a written declaration of accession, this must be returned without delay. In the case of an electronic declaration of accession, the data of the declaration of accession must be erased without delay after sending the notification under the second sentence.