Syndic - Call for additional funds due to others not paying maintenance. Can they?

[Simon_Catlin]

Helllo,

We have an apartment, in a block of 20 flats, which is managed by a Management Agency.  The apartments are just over two years old and the builders setup a Syndic with a large Management company, who were at best, useless.  Effectively, the Sydnic fired them and took on our second Management Company, who seem more proactive.  However, the first management company did not notify us of 10 issues, which the second Management Company are now drawing to our attention. One of the major issues is that for over two years, two owners have not paid their maintenance charges, which is approx €9,000.  I know that legal action is being taken against the two owners to re-coup the money, however, the Management company want the other 18 "law abiding" to fund the €9,000 shortfall and the legal fees.  This shortfall is now causing other issues such as non-payment of the contractors on-site.  We have lost the "climatisation" staff as they had not been paid for three quarters, our buildings cleaners have not been paid for four months etc.

So, my question is

Can the Management Company ask us for the 18 other owners for the additional funds of the shortfall? 

Should we only offer to pay for the legal fees initially?

Any other comments greatfully received.

Thanks in advance

Simon

   

[Sprogster]

You should look at your associations reglement, by which the owners are bound, but unfortunately the answer is almost certainly that you and the other owners are jointly responsible. To put matters in context if a creditor was to sue, all the owners are jointly liable, if there was an accident in your apartments shared swimming pool and your association is found in breach of the safety requirements, then all the owners are jointly liable and so on. If you ignored the situation, a creditor could put a lien on the whole building.

In the current economic enviroment this is going to be an increasing problem for individuals living in co-propriete developments, as I am sure many owners do not fully understand the joint liability situation arising from being a co-owner of the common areas and facilities, which with an apartment includes the fabric of the building. In America and Spain with the property market collapse, this has become a major problem for Condiminium owners, especially for those who have bought new builds and found themselves in a building only half sold and having to pick up the bill for all the running costs.

Hopefully, in Antibes you will be relatively insulated from this, but it is worth knowing that in France many co-propriete developments have a history of funding problems, especially where most of the owners are French, as culturally the French do not see the necessitty of keeping a residential property well maintained!   

 

[Simon_Catlin]

Thank you for the advice.  You confirmed my thoughts that we were screwed...  I am thinking that maybe we could try and put some pressure on the first Management Company for negligence.

I like the comments regarding the French not paying, however, I understand that these two are non French.  I am also concerned that we have no provisioning fund for the future work neither and your comments on mainainened property proves this is the norm.

[gas]

I find it strange that you are only now finding out that two of the co-owners have not paid as accounts have to be prepared each year and presented to the agm. It seems reasonable for the management company to ask the other owners to fund the shortfall, which is essentially a temporary matter. As you indicated the defaulting owners will find that they are in big trouble and will have to pay all arrears, plus interest and legal costs. If the rules are standard then the law allows the properties that have not paid to be sold to meet accumulated arrears.

 

The additional cost is 500€, not a huge amount of money. i suspect that if the maintenance charge is 2.250€ per annum the the value of the apartment must be around 400.000€, it seems to a very small price to pay to have the matter resolved and have the cleaning staff etc back working and as i said  just a temporary loan.

[Simon_Catlin]

@gas

We have only ever seen one set of accounts and there were four who were "heavily" in arrears, i.e.more than one quarter.  Two of these have paid after the first AGM (last July - 19 months after the Syndic was set-up).  Since then, we have not been informed of any movement on this matter until our representative spoke with us this weekend.

€500 may seem small to some, but with our family income halved in the last 2 months due to redundancy, we are watching the cents at the moment.

[gas]

Like I said the additional 500€ is a loan, which will be repaid. 2.250€ seems to be quite a high maintenance charge in respect of a new building. Who is the company looking after the building. In your part of the world I suspect Foncia; which are expensive but very professional. Hopefully your financial situation will improve in the future.