Verdict of rue d’Aubagne: the trial of irresponsibility

Free tribune

The verdict of the deadly collapse trial of buildings in rue d’Aubagne in Marseille was pronounced at the beginning of the month. Henry Buzy -Cazaux, founding president of the Institute for Real Estate Management, deciphers its consequences for the housing policy and the practices of real estate professionals.

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Seven years of investigation, hearings, more than one hundred civil parties, for a deliberation and a verdict: the trial of the sixteen defendants of the collapse of three buildings in the rue d’Aubagne in Marseille, which had left eight dead, ended before the criminal court on July 7. It is not a news item, it is much more than that and from this drama and pronounced convictions it is necessary to learn deep teachings for housing policy and professional practices.

Only one elected municipal official, the deputy mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin now deceased, was accused and he received two years in prison suspended from five years of prohibition to exercise a public service. He is accused of having ignored the issues and of not having used the entire budget made available to him to intervene directly on the building and save him. We know how much Jean-Claude Gaudin has brought this tragedy as a glaring criticism of his urban imperiousness. This era is over and mayors must now prevent and act, especially with trustee. Their criminal responsibility is engaged and their moral responsibility just as much. Without question, this trial marks a turning point for municipal elected officials, but also for public policies.

Indeed, why do these perils on the existing housing stock of our cities worsen and why do events affecting our urban heritage multiply? The climate change, when it is not the direct cause, accentuates and catalyzes these phenomena, by experiencing our buildings and the most fragile of them by priority. The public authorities must be engines in improving habitat. The mayors in mind have specific tools and more means of authority, of which they must use, after the report and the bill which followed on the initiative of deputy Guillaume Vuilletet, inspired by the drama of the rue d’Aubagne singularly.

It is also incompetent or negligent professionals that this court decision designates vindictive. A firm of administration of passive goods despite his knowledge of the technical disorders of the building -more than more than he was a co -owner there -, an nonexistent co -owner were on the bench of the accused and their sorrows are heavy … Although: € 100,000 for the first and € 8,000 for the second are not commensurate with the price of eight lives. On the other hand, the final prohibition to exercise is not in detail and we understand it. Another professional actor, the renowned architect called in emergency a few weeks before the collapse to assess the building, is convicted of manslaughter: he admitted to having botched his work and he advocated the return to their housing of the tenants dislodged by protective measure.

Finally, wise co -owners and having done nothing to avoid the worst were heavily punished. First the partners of the Civil Real Estate Company (SCI) owner of several rental accommodation in the building: they will go to prison or wear the electronic bracelet for sentences up to four years and fines up to 40,000 €. It was judged that they had perfect knowledge of the situation and that it is knowingly that he did not remedy it by initiating the necessary work and by not soliciting the trustee to promote a majority decision -which would have been easy to obtain given their number of hooks in the condominiums. They were all the more indifferent to it as they engaged in the activity of sleeping merchant by staying at uprights of staggering rent from poor households. Then a co -owner like the others, also elected regional and lawyer for the trustee, in defiance of any conflict of interest, will have to pay four years in prison, two of which were suspended, accompanied by € 100,000 fine and the ban for five years to buy accommodation. The proof was administered that he had blocked the votes so that the structural work was not decided. Again, we can see that the co -owners, if they are informed of the risks, cannot be exonerated from technical corrective actions and that no pecuniary reason can dispense with putting their heritage with elementary standards of decency. A teaching for those lying around and awaiting an injunction of the town hall, for example, to make the facelift of a facade which could crumble, resulting in the dropping of balconies in particular.

In short, the trial of collapse in the rue d’Aubagne tells us that the buildings live, are assigned to pathologies and that hold them, manage them or have the burden of local habitat policies leaves no room for carelessness or approximate competence. Real estate existing between violently in the era of responsibility. Expicion for those who are ready and terrible for others, badly used to it.