Co-ownership charges sometimes hide financial traps that are all the more formidable because they appear technical. This is the case of water meters. The individual formats, in each accommodation, promise to allocate the exact amounts according to the volumes actually consumed. “ In their absence, the overall bill is calculated by the general meter and distributed to the pro rata of the feesthat is to say according to the surface area of each accommodation, which does not necessarily correspond to consumption according to the number of occupants », explains Antoine Lecroisey, co-founder Ma Nego.
Today, almost all providers on the market now offer global formulas including rental, upkeep and maintenance, offering free installation, without any initial cost for the co-ownership. In return, each co-owner pays a recurring annual fee to cover the rental of the device, its regular maintenance and the reading of indexes. “ To amortize the costs of this free initial installation, the contracts are more or less locked for 10 yearshe warns. In addition, these long-term commitments systematically include automatic reindexing clauses rates of the order of 2 to 3% per year.
Bad maintenance
In addition to negotiate the starting pricewe must also be vigilant about the maintenance of these meters. “ It is estimated today that on average 20 to 30% of the meter fleets installed within condominiums are completely non-operational », he warns. The reason? Malfunctioning meters, devices whose reading remains stuck at zero or equipment which simply could never be installed in the absence of the owners. “ During renovation work, some owners install decorative formwork which literally walls off the meters, making any maintenance impossible. “.
Without forgetting a lack of monitoring and communication between the trustee and the service provider. Sometimes, the software works automatically, without any human verification of the data and the databases of co-owner listings are not updated. “ In the complete absence of annual framing meetings, no one monitors the effectiveness of technical campaignsnotes Antoine Lecroisey. The co-owners end up paying for nothing and the co-ownership must return to the old method of distribution of shares to fill the gaps “.
Take Back Control
Faced with these problems, it is up to the union council to take control by activating several concrete levers of action, and indirectly to the co-owners. As owners, actively use your personalized online space to monitor consumption history. “ This is the best way to detect a broken device », he adds. Then, the union council can request the complete listing of building records to carry out a careful comparative study, and “ identify anomalies and in particular neighbors’ meters displaying an index at zero “.
Co-owners can request the establishment of a rigorous protocol between the trustee and the service provider. “ On a fleet of 100 meters, if the union council identifies 25 problematic devices, it must get involved in the organization of meetings, validate the display dates and require detailed intervention reports to know if a repair was successful and, if this is not the case, understand the precise reasons. », concludes Antoine Lecroisey.
