Buying: What you need to know

DOCUMENTS TO BE CONSULTED BEFORE EXCHANGING CONTRACTS

You've fallen in love with an apartment or a house? It's within your price range? Before making a commitment, you will need to consult the following documents:

• The statement of common expenses (relevé des charges) and the minutes of the last membership meeting (procès-verbal de l'assemblée générale des copropriétaires). They will tell you whether the apartments are managed correctly and whether works have been voted recently;
• The building's maintenance record (carnet d'entretien de l'immeuble): the seller must provide the maintenance record on request. It is kept up-to-date by the building manager (syndic) and indicates the year in which major works are carried out (restoration of the façade, addition of a lift, etc.).
• The latest land tax (taxe foncière) and local services tax (taxe d'habitation) notices
• Surveys and other certificates (asbestos, lead, termite, gas & electricity and natural & technological hazard surveys, energy efficiency rating, non-collective sewerage installation control document).

If you intend to buy a house, you should contact the local council in order to find out the town planning regulations and any works that are scheduled for the neighbourhood.

All (non professional) buyers of housing properties who have signed a private contract have a 7-day withdrawal (or "cooling off") period (délai de rétractation). During this time, no money is paid, except when the contract is handled by a professional who has to reimburse any sums received within 21 days in case of withdrawal from the agreement. t.

ACTE AUTHENTIQUE

Completion of the sale before a notaire (a publicly appointed official who is responsible for ensuring the property has good title, i.e. that there are no irregularities in the ownership, and that the purchase or sale is correctly transacted) is the last step before registration and legalization of the sale. If no contracts have been exchanged previously, the notaire must allow the buyer a 7-day cooling-off period (délai de réflexion) after notification of the draft deed of sale (project d'acte). In most cases, it is the seller's notaire who handles the deed, assisted, as the case may be, by the buyer's notaire. The other costs incurred by the sale (notaire's fees, stamp duty and registration fees) are paid entirely by the purchaser.

COPROPRIETE DEFINITION OF COPROPRIETE

A copropriété is a block of apartments or a freehold estate divided into units and common areas, with each unit owned by a unit-holder (copropriétaire) and an undivided interest in the common areas owned jointly by the commonhold. It is governed by the French law of 10 July 1965 and the decree of 17 March 1967. A set of regulations set out in the commonhold community statement (règlement de copropriété) defines the purpose of the freehold estate and determines the rights and obligations of the unit-holders, in relation to both their individual units and the common areas, as well as their share of the running costs of the building. The unit-holders are members of an association called a syndicat, which is a legal entity. It draws up the commonhold community statement if necessary and its purpose is to maintain the property and manage the common areas. Decisions are made at membership meetings (assemblée générale), usually held once a year, and are executed by a managing agent (syndic), under the control of a body called the conseil syndical, elected by the association of members to assist and supervise the syndic

WHAT THE SYNDIC DOES

The syndic is mainly responsible for the following:

• ensuring that the commonhold community statement and decisions made by membership meetings are respected;
• managing the block of apartments, including general operation of the building, maintenance, repair and caretaking
• and having any necessary emergency work carried out at its own initiative;
• keeping the building maintenance record up to date (carnet d'entretien);
• drawing up the proposed budget for submission to the annual membership meeting and providing separate accounts for each syndicat, in accordance with the decree of 14 March 2005 (except for small commonholds of less than 10 units whose proposed budget for three financial years is less than 15,000 euros.

COMMON AREAS AND UNITS

The units are the parts of the building and land designated for exclusive ownership of a given unit-holder. They are the exclusive property of each unit-holder. However, it is the commonhold community statement which defines the exact boundaries of each unit. The common areas are the parts of the building and land allocated for the use of some or all of the unit holders. If no specific mention is made or in the case of a contradiction between deeds, the following are deemed to be common parts:

• Building hallways and corridors;
• Staircases, lift wells;
• Courtyards;
• Parks and gardens;
• Access roads;
• Building envelopes, casework, ducts and chimney stacks;
• Technical premises (bin rooms, for example);
• Passageways and corridors;
• Building services, including piping running through private areas;
• Central heating. The boiler and heating installations are the joint property of the syndicat and to prevent serious disruption of the entire installation, it is forbidden to modify, replace or remove any of the heaters installed in the units;
• Rubbish chutes: ducts are common areas and so are hoppers when they are collective; however, when the hoppers are installed in the units, they are private;
• The building antenna and/or satellite dish.

COMMON EXPENSES

The breakdown of common expenses among the unit holders is defined by the commonhold community statement in pursuance of the provisions of article 10 of the law of 1965 which distinguishes between expenses relating to common parts and those relating to common installations and collective services. Expenses relating to the maintenance, repair and operation of the common areas must be divided up in proportion to the relative value of each unit. Expenses incurred by collective services and common installations are divided up according to use of the said services and installations by each unit.

ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING

All the unit-holders can participate, together with the following:

• Tenants having signed a home ownership contract;
• Partners, in the case of units owned by a non-trading property company (société civile immobilière);
• The agent, in the case of jointly-owned units;
• Representatives of tenant associations;
• Tenants appointed by a unit-holder.

If a unit-holder cannot personally attend the meeting, they can be represented by a person of their choice, except for the syndic. The proxy is written and signed on plain, unheaded paper. The same person cannot hold more than three proxies, unless all the proxies represent less than 5% of the votes. At least one meeting must be held per year. However, an extraordinary meeting can be convened if necessary, at the initiative of the syndic, at the request of the conseil syndical, or at the request of one or more unit-holders representing at least one-fourth of the votes of all the unit-holders unless the commonhold community statement specifies a smaller number of votes. Except in the case of an emergency, the managing agent must respect a period of at least 21 days before the date of the meeting. Notification to attend the meeting is sent by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or handed personally to the unit-holders who sign an acceptance sheet. The draft resolutions and essential conditions of contracts and quotations to be submitted to the meeting for approval are appended to the notification to attend, together with the proposed budget for the next year and the statement of account for the previous year. Each unit-holder or representative must sign the attendance sheet. At the beginning of the meeting, a chair and one or several scrutineers (scrutateurs) are appointed. Unless decided otherwise by the meeting, the managing agent takes the minutes. Each point on the agenda is then examined and voted upon according to the majority applicable to the type of decision concerned. The results of the votes are written down in the minutes which also indicate whether or not the decision was adopted. Within the two months following the meeting, the minutes must be send to any non-represented absent unit-holders and the opponents of any of the points on the agenda, who then have two months to appeal to the court to have the latter annulled.