Energy renovation of condominiums: “But what are the banks waiting for to finance the work!”

Free tribune

While the financial needs of COPROS for their energy transition are colossal, the banks always turn a deaf ear to their calls. A serious error, according to Henry Buzy-Cazaux, founding president of the Institute of Real Estate Services.

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600,000 condominium buildings which must make their environmental moult: this is undoubtedly the biggest challenge of the country’s ecological transition, by its importance and the number of buildings concerned, also by the mode of decision which governs the condominiums. It is also in the condominiums that are the main part of the private rental housing, partly threatened with the prohibition to rent, and this is where it is urgent to act to avoid the attrition of the rental offer. Not to mention that the energy transfer, by the confession of all the condominium trustees, creates the opportunity to embark on all -round maintenance and restoration work: the co -owners had deferred them and the obligations to diagnose and program buildings for energy reasons leads them to engage at the same time other gestures of repair and modernization of the building. In short, this is really the site of the century.

It can be estimated that the most difficult to lift brake is the outbreak of the power to decide. This observation is undeniable. In this year when it is celebrated the 60th anniversary of the law which instituted the co -ownership regime in France, promulgated on July 10, 1965, the actors of the co -ownership do not question the principle of this kind of censitaire democracy, the only logic valid to organize life in buildings whose property of the common areas is shared. We will just observe that in most cases, the cause must be sought in what prevents a majority from emerging, the question of the contributory capacity of the co -owners, individual and collective.

Faced with work of a considerable amount, which amounts to several hundred thousand euros, the savings of each and all – the works fund created by the Alur law of March 24, 2014 – are far from being sufficient and an authentic financial engineering must be deployed. The trustees must acquire a culture of funding and know how to mobilize the good specialized specialized skills, by using a financial control assistant (AMO). Admittedly, it is a question of bringing together the public aid to which the condominium can claim, but also of finding the additional solutions in terms of credit. The famous collective loans were born 20 years ago and we never talked so much about them. If their market was confidential, its depth has increased with the constraints of the fight against climate change. The legislator even got involved by inventing, alongside the preexisting formula of the collective loan with individual membership, a loan for systematic membership, unless otherwise expressed in the two months following the notification of the minutes of the General Assembly having voted.

“How don’t banks and guarantors go for one man on this market?”

We would be justified in thinking that the arsenal is complete and that everything is fine. In fact, banks do not rush as one man towards the financing of condominiums. The two major historically familiar brands of the individual loan to membership are the most allant. The others, encouraged by the government and the parliament, are reluctant to consider the community of co -owners as a one and indivisible borrower and to understand what risk it is really carrier. They consider that they have no visibility or mastery. Furthermore, it is the surety companies that lack enthusiasm. These actors have also approved in registration in the law which they would intervene from the failure of the co-owner, while stricto sensu it is the failure of the syndicate of co-owners who will be acted, itself obviously caused by one of its members. It also had to be scraped for the decree to apply the law specifying the methods of the collective loan do not require the trustee to provide the banker with a long list of documents relating to each borrower co -owner …

French banks and their guarantors, which in fact have the last word on the acceptance of a credit, must change their eyes to the real risk attached to the condominiums: it is tiny. First, no reason to think that the monthly payments of the loan, adding to the general charges, calculated so as to be bearable by the coempructor, generate unpaid. No reason either to imagine a kind of negligence on the grounds that the loan is granted, put in force and that there will be no consequence on the realization of the work … The lender will be rather less conciliatory than the trustee when he see an unpaid … The fear of the gendarme will be stronger than it is today. In addition, the eyes of the neighbors on the bad payers is not bringing and it is a permanent pressure likely to avoid the guilty negligence … We are talking about lack of rigor, and no accidents of the objective life, respectable in itself. Finally, what is the ultimate warranty in the event of non -absorbed unpaid? The sale of the lot belonging to the failing co -owner. Its value is such that the claim will obviously be absorbed. How in this context, banks and guarantors do not rush as one man on this market?

“Less than 10% of the work essential to upgrading the energy performance of the condominiums has been carried out”

Admittedly, the administrative management of a collective loan is more complex, but at the time of artificial software and intelligence, which would believe that lenders can be dissuaded by this embarrassment? What is more, in return for this complexity of each file, it is on average an unusual amount: an average condominium of around twenty apartments needs one million, one million and a half or even two million euros … Enough to justify some computer developments and specific training of specialized teams. To date, it is estimated that less than 10% of the work essential for upgrading the energy performance of the condominiums have been carried out, on an estimated amount between 200 and 400 billion euros!

Banks cannot fail to give wages of green balance sheets. The condominium offers them the most promising market in this regard. History would not forgive them for having delayed or prevented the success of the environmental transformation of French condominiums. Moreover, it is the collective heritage of their customers that they will promote valuation: it is much more than a guarantee in the event of failure, it constitutes the base of wealth which encourages households to consume and to go into debt for their everyday life and their investments.