Co-owners meeting lawyer Paris: challenge before the time bar.

The strict time limit is two months from notification of the minutes, under Article 42, paragraph 2, of the Act of 10 July 1965. This provision is a matter of public policy and the sanction is forfeiture: once the period has expired, the action is inadmissible, however well-founded the complaint. The managing agent must give notification within one month of the meeting, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt. The period runs from the day after the first presentation of the letter. If notification is irregular, or if the managing agent cannot prove dispatch (a burden of proof that lies on the managing agent according to Cass. 3e civ., 17 December 2015, No. 14-24.630, published in the Bulletin), the period does not run and the action remains open within the ordinary five-year limitation period.

It all depends on the nature of the works. Works necessary for the preservation of the building, or for the health or physical safety of the occupants, are adopted by the simple majority of Article 24 (majority of the votes cast by co-owners present, represented or voting by post). Works affecting the common parts or the outward appearance of the building, authorised for a co-owner at their own expense, fall under the absolute majority of Article 25 b (majority of the votes of all co-owners). Energy-saving works or works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fall under Article 25 f. The bridging mechanism of Article 25-1 allows an immediate second vote by simple majority where the project has obtained at least one third of the votes of all co-owners without reaching the absolute majority. Finally, acts of acquisition of real property fall under the double majority of Article 26 (majority of co-owners representing two thirds of the votes). Review of the majority applied is one of the main grounds of challenge.

The minutes must be notified to dissenting and absent co-owners by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, in accordance with Articles 17, 64 and 65 of the Decree of 17 March 1967. The time limit for notification is one month from the holding of the meeting. Posting in the common parts does not relieve the managing agent of individual notification to dissenting and absent co-owners. Only notification starts the Article 42 period running for them. For co-owners who were present or represented and voted in favour of the resolutions, the minutes are in principle simply handed over at the end of the session or circulated by any means, but they have no standing to challenge the meeting, unless they voted against a specific resolution. The burden of proving notification lies with the co-owners' association: failing that, the period does not run.

Several irregularities can ground a nullity action. A notice sent less than twenty-one days before the date of the meeting (Article 9 of the decree) opens the way to a challenge, unless urgency is justified. An incomplete or imprecise agenda deprives co-owners of the information required and may lead to the annulment of resolutions adopted on the ambiguous points. A notice not signed by the managing agent in office, or issued by a person without authority, weakens the whole procedure. Dispatch to a wrong address, when the co-owner had notified their new home address, justifies annulment of the meeting as regards that co-owner. The Court of Cassation has held that the date of notification by registered post is, as regards the person to whom it is addressed, the date on which the letter is received (Cass. 3e civ., 11 March 2003, No. 01-17.657). Checking formal regularity is therefore an essential step in the defence.

No. Article 13 of the Decree of 17 March 1967 provides that the general meeting takes a valid decision only on the questions entered on the agenda. A decision taken on a question not entered is void. This rule protects the information of co-owners: they must be able to prepare their vote on the basis of the announced questions. However, Article 10 allows one or more co-owners, or the co-owners' council, to notify the managing agent of questions to be entered on the agenda before the notice of meeting is sent. The request must be made within the period laid down by the co-ownership regulations or, failing that, within a reasonable period allowing the entry. If the managing agent wrongly refuses the entry, its liability may be engaged. The co-owner who was shut out may ask for the item to be entered at the next meeting, or challenge the non-entry as a ground of later nullity.

Yes. The absent co-owner, that is, one who neither attended nor was represented at the meeting, has standing to challenge the decisions taken. Article 42, paragraph 2, treats such a co-owner in the same way as a dissenting co-owner. The two-month period runs from notification of the minutes, which must be sent by registered letter. The rule is protective: a co-owner who was not given notice, or who was unable to take part in the meeting, keeps a right to criticise after the meeting. Proof of absent status results simply from absence from the attendance sheet and the absence of a designated proxy. The absent co-owner may challenge the meeting as a whole or only certain resolutions. Their standing extends to all the decisions taken at the meeting, without any need to prove a specific opposition to this or that resolution.

Article 25 sets out an exhaustive list of decisions adopted by the absolute majority of the votes of all co-owners. These include: delegation of power to the managing agent or the co-owners' council for acts provided for in Article 24 (a), authorisation given to a co-owner to carry out works affecting the common parts (b), appointment and removal of the managing agent and of the members of the co-owners' council (c), acts of disposal of common parts resulting from legal obligations (d), changes in the allocation of charges made necessary by a change of use of a private part (e), energy-saving works (f), the arrangements for opening the doors (g), the installation of aerials or communication networks (h), the installation of charging points for electric vehicles (j), the installation of individual water meters (k), heat cost allocators (l), authorisation to transmit video surveillance images (m), works of transformation, addition or improvement (n), and the individualisation of water supply contracts (o). Any decision outside this list falls in principle under the simple majority of Article 24, unless the co-ownership regulations or the law provide otherwise. The bridging mechanism of Article 25-1 allows a second vote by simple majority where the absolute majority has not been reached.

Several items of evidence are useful. The sending envelope with the postmark of presentation, carefully kept by the co-owner, establishes the date from which the twenty-one-day period before the meeting runs. If the date is too close to the meeting, the irregularity is obvious. The copy of the registered letter and the acknowledgement of receipt provide objective evidence. Where there was no notice at all, the co-owner produces a negative certificate stating that no letter was received, and challenges the regularity of the procedure. The managing agent bears the burden of proof: it must produce the supporting documents for regular notification, at the co-owner's exact home address. The Court of Cassation has made clear that it is for the co-owners' association to prove that notification was regular (our translation, Cass. 3e civ., 17 December 2015, No. 14-24.630). Without this proof, neither the time limit for challenge nor the regularity of the meeting can be validated.

Yes, under Article 25 c of the Act of 10 July 1965, which includes the appointment and removal of the managing agent or agents among the decisions taken by absolute majority. Removal may be voted at any time, even during the term of office, provided it is entered on the agenda of the meeting. For serious grounds (mismanagement, breach of contractual obligations, loss of confidence), removal is valid even without notice. For less serious grounds, the removed managing agent may claim the balance of its end-of-term fees. Removal requires an absolute majority, but the bridging mechanism of Article 25-1 allows a second vote by simple majority if the project obtained at least one third of the votes of all co-owners. A removal not entered on the agenda would be void (Article 13 of the 1967 decree). Where removal is contested, the managing agent may apply to the court to have the irregularity of the procedure recorded.

A resolution adopted by the wrong majority is liable to annulment. Common errors are: adoption by simple majority when the double majority of Article 26 was required; failure to calculate the one third required to activate the bridging mechanism of Article 25-1; forgetting to count postal votes; participation in the vote of a co-owner whose status is disputed; wrong calculation of ownership shares (tantièmes). Checking is done by close reading of the minutes, which must record the exact result under each resolution (Article 17 of the decree). The attendance sheet is annexed and allows the votes to be verified. Once the error is identified, the dissenting co-owner may issue a writ for nullity of the contested resolution. The Court of Cassation ensures strict compliance with majority rules: for example, in its judgment of 12 July 2018 (No. 17-21.378), it set aside the ruling of a court of appeal that had not sufficiently examined whether the contested resolution, in the light of Article 25 e as then worded (works made compulsory by regulatory provisions), was not required for regulatory reasons. The rule is therefore a fine one: you must check whether the majority applied was the right one.

In principle yes, unless there is a special provision. Article 22 of the Act of 10 July 1965 does not provide for any general incompatibility on the ground that a co-owner is personally interested in the vote. When the meeting rules on an authorisation given to a co-owner to carry out works affecting the common parts (Article 25 b), the co-owner concerned may vote. However, certain cases of nullity exist: if the majority is reached only thanks to the vote of the interested co-owner and that vote raises a good-faith difficulty, annulment is possible. Article 22 also provides specific limits (for example, a proxy holding more than three co-owners' mandates is limited to a fraction of the votes). When fixing the fees of a managing agent standing for re-election, some co-ownership regulations exclude the managing agent from the vote. Review is carried out case by case, by reading the regulations and the applicable case law. The Court of Cassation takes care not to extend incompatibilities beyond the texts.

The two-month period is not a clear-days period. It runs from the day after the first presentation of the registered letter containing the minutes at the co-owner's home (Article 64 of the Decree of 17 March 1967). The end of the period is the corresponding date in the second following month. If that date falls on a Saturday, a Sunday or a public holiday, it is extended to the next working day, in accordance with Article 642 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Example: if the registered letter is presented on 15 March and 15 May is a Sunday, the action may be brought up to and including Monday 16 May. The period is assessed at the date of service of the writ of summons on the association, by a commissaire de justice (court bailiff), and not at the date of filing with the court registry. A shortfall of a few hours is enough to cause the time bar. That is why exact calculation, anticipating service, is crucial. The firm systematically anticipates service to avoid any risk of time bar through miscalculation.

The competent court is the judicial court of the place where the building is situated, under Article 44 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In Paris, territorial jurisdiction lies with the Paris judicial court, and subject-matter jurisdiction is given to the 8th chamber, which groups the divisions specialised in co-ownership and leases. The procedure is the written procedure, with mandatory representation by a lawyer, since the reform. The writ of summons is served on the co-owners' association, in the person of its managing agent in office, which represents it. The pre-trial phase is conducted by a single judge, who may rule on inadmissibility objections (Article 789, 6° of the Code of Civil Procedure). At the end of the pre-trial phase, the case is referred to the trial hearing. Waiting times for a hearing vary between 12 and 24 months depending on how congested the court is. The judgment may be appealed to the Paris court of appeal, within one month of service. An appeal to the Court of Cassation against the appeal judgment is open within two months.

The general meeting is not, in principle, subject to any minimum quorum rule in order to deliberate validly. Since the simple majority of Article 24 applies to the votes cast by those present, represented or voting by post, the meeting may deliberate even with a limited number of co-owners. By contrast, the absolute majority of Article 25 and the double majority of Article 26 impose thresholds calculated on all the votes of all co-owners (present or not). In practice, when attendance is low, Article 25 cannot be reached without activating the bridging mechanism of Article 25-1, which requires at least one third of the votes of all co-owners for a second vote by simple majority to be held immediately. A proxy holder may not receive more than three proxies, unless the total of the votes they hold themselves and those of their principals does not exceed 10% of the votes of the association (Article 22 I). The managing agent's skill lies in balancing proxies so as to reach the required majorities without exceeding the ceilings.

Annulment of a general meeting or of one of its resolutions has retroactive effect. The annulled decisions are deemed never to have existed. For the association, this requires convening a new meeting to rule again on the questions concerned. For the managing agent, annulment may lead to it bearing the bailiff's and lawyer's fees and the cost of the new meeting, where mismanagement is established. For co-owners, annulment suspends or erases the financial consequences of the resolutions concerned (for example, calls for funds that no longer have a basis). If the works decided have already been started, their continuation may be blocked by an urgent application in case of urgency. The resolution passed again must strictly respect the applicable majority and the regular procedure. The dissenting co-owner who obtains annulment may also claim damages if the irregularity caused them a particular loss. Legal certainty in the co-ownership requires the managing agent to draw the consequences of annulment and to bring the building back to a situation compliant with the law.