Co-owners, the management of your building is turning into a fiasco? Tell us about your struggles!

Home ownership remains a deep-rooted dream among the French. It is certainly synonymous with financial security but also with a life in co-ownership that is far from relaxing. If this is your case, your testimony interests us.

Marie has just signed the authentic purchase deed for her first apartment. The young woman is now among the 57% of French people who own their main residence. A consecration, really? “You will discover the joys of co-ownership…”quips her notary, telling her that it is to her, and not to the former owner, that the building trustee will address the appeal for funds for the payment of co-ownership charges for the next quarter.

Yes, being a co-owner does not only mean organizing aperitifs with neighbors in the garden of the residence, or calling on the handyman skills of the president of the union council to increase the pressure in your shower. Co-ownership is also synonymous with small hassles and big hassles. In Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), the residents of a 14-storey condominium are deprived of an elevator for a year and a half. Toulouse, Nancy, Rouen… Elevator breakdowns that drag on are legion. With the same questions each time: what does the trustee do? Should we continue to pay co-ownership charges? Moreover, if the elevator is not repaired, it may simply be because some owners do not pay their charges, which prevents the work from being financed…

From small everyday annoyances to real hassles

Another subject of friction set to increase, even if the new government seems determined to relax the timetable for banning the rental of thermal strainers: energy renovation. In certain old buildings, the apartments located on the top floor will never be able to escape the status of thermal sieve if the attic of the building is not insulated. However, it is not easy to convince the co-owners of the lower floors to finance a renovation which they do not see the usefulness for themselves… Co-owners who, by the way, do not all take the trouble to participate in the general meetings (GA) annual, to the point that, due to lack of quorum (minimum presence), the trustee must convene a new AG, the organization of which will represent an additional cost for the co-ownership.

Without necessarily going that far, co-ownership is also full of small daily annoyances. Like your neighbor who stores her children’s stroller in the hallway so as not to clutter her apartment. Or like the residents of the building who don’t bother to gently close the porte cochère behind them, letting it slam, a nightmare for you who live on the first floor. You, whose life as a co-owner is not a long, quiet river either, do not hesitate to testify, anonymously if you wish, to the editorial staff of Capitalat the following address: [email protected].