Condominium in serious difficulty: backup plan

Buildings concerned

The backup plan may aim at:

• A set of buildings
• Or a group of buildings

à usage of dwelling or for mixed use professional, commercial and residential.

These buildings must be in condominium.

Existence of serious difficulties

For a backup plan to be put in place, the syndicate of co-owners must be confronted with severe social, technical and financial difficulties which may threaten the conservation of the condominium.

In practice, these difficulties may be:

• A serious financial imbalance of the syndicate of co-owners (massive unpaid debts, inability to pay the necessary charges and works)
• An inability to ensure the conservation of the building (significant damage, risks to the security of the building, unsanitary conditions)
• Legal complexities that make the management of condominiums impossible (highly fragmented condominiums, poorly defined communal facilities or inadequate operating rules)
• Social difficulties (precariousness of occupants, neighborhood disturbancesdegradation of the living environment).

1Establishment of a commission

The prefect, who is aware of serious difficulties encountered by a condominium, must set up a commission to draw up a diagnosis of the situation and propose a safeguard plan to resolve the identified difficulties.

This commission is chaired by the prefect and shall include the following persons:

• Representatives of the owners and tenants of the building concerned
• Mayor of the municipality
• President of the EPCI competent in the field of habitat
• Chairman of the departmental council (of the building department)
• Chairman of the union council or a representative of the co-owners appointed by the general meeting
• Provisional Administrator if it has been designated.

The trustee has the obligation to make available to the prefect and the commission all the documents necessary for the preparation, implementation and evaluation of the safeguard plan.

The documents are provided at the request of the commission, free of charge.

The lack of communication of the documents engages the responsibility of the syndic of co-ownership 1 month after a formal notice by registered letter with request for acknowledgement of receipt remained unsuccessful.

2Development of the safeguard plan

The commission must draw up a draft safeguard plan.

The purpose of this plan is to fix, in a 5 years, the measures necessary to:

• Addressing the financial situation of the condominium
• Clarify and simplify the rules of structure and administration of the group of buildings or of the whole property (for example, division of a too large condominium, reorganization of trade unions)
• Clarify and adapt the status of public goods and equipment (for example, public roads crossing the condominium, equipment shared with the municipality)
• Carry out or have carried out by a third party conservation work on the building or reducing operating costs (renovation, waterproofing, rehabilitation of networks, renegotiation of maintenance contracts, etc.)
• Provide information and training to the occupants of the building in order to restore social relations (legal and social permanence, awareness-raising actions, etc.)
• Organize the implementation of accompanying measures (social support, temporary relocation, mediation, etc.).

The draft backup plan must be approved by the prefect.

The following stakeholders must also give their notices on the draft safeguard plan:

• Mayor of the municipality
• President of the EPCI competent in the field of habitat
• Chairman of the departmental council having signed an agreement for the allocation of public aid for the benefit of co-ownership.

3Safeguard Plan Implementation Agreement

The backup plan must then be the subject of a implementation agreement between:

• Competent persons governed by public law (State, local authorities, EPCI)
• THEprovisional administrator whether it has been designated
• Interested private persons (e.g. co-owners).

This agreement specifies in particular the timetable for the recovery measures provided for in the plan, the conditions for their financing (grants, loans, participation of co-owners, etc.) and the conditions for intervention by the various mandated operators.

4Designation of a coordinator

The Prefect shall appoint, from among the members of the commission or outside it, coordinator who is responsible for:

• Ensure proper execution of the plan
• Address formal notice to parties that do not respect their commitments
• In the case of judicial proceedings (provisional administration), ensure the articulation between the plan and the mission of the provisional administrator 
• Prepare a mission report.

5Inclusion on the agenda of the general meeting of co-owners

The syndicate of co-ownership must organize the vote of the measures recommended in the safeguard plan.

For this purpose, upon receipt of the final safeguard plan, the liquidator must register with theagenda of the next general assembly the measures advocated by the plan.

If the next general meeting does not take place within 6 months of plan approval, the trustee must call an extraordinary general meeting.