Inspecting the common parts: the building is part of what you are buying

Buyers spend an hour inside the apartment and four minutes in the stairwell. In a Luxembourg co-ownership the ratio should be closer to the reverse, because the common parts are where the unpredictable money is.

What is common, and why it is not yours to fix

Under the amended law of 16 May 1975, a copropriété exists as soon as a building is divided between several owners into lots, each comprising a private part and a share of the common parts expressed in millièmes. The structure, roof, staircases, facade and collective equipment are common; every owner is automatically a member of the syndicat des copropriétaires, the legal person that owns and manages them.

The practical consequence is that a defect in the common parts is not a renovation you can price with a contractor. It is a decision taken by the general assembly, executed by the syndic, and billed to you in proportion to your millièmes whether or not you use the element concerned. A ground-floor owner contributes to the lift.

That is why the common parts belong in the viewing rather than in the walk from the car.

The fifteen minutes before you ring the bell

• The entrance and hall. Condition of the paintwork, the entryphone panel, the letterboxes, the door closer. These are cheap items maintained by a syndic that is functioning and neglected by one that is not.
• The staircase and landings. Look for damp at the base of walls, cracking at junctions, and whether the emergency lighting works.
• The lift. Read the inspection certificate posted inside the cabin and check its date. An expired or missing certificate is a straightforward signal.
• The cellar corridor. The least presented part of the building and therefore the most honest. Pipework condition, evidence of past water ingress, whether corridors are clear or every owner is storing things outside their cave.
• The bin store and bicycle store. Luxembourg communes operate separated collection with specific bins and days; a building with no organised space for it produces bags in the corridor.
• The notice board. Minutes, planned works, or a notice about a facade renovation are all information the agent has no obligation to volunteer.

The boiler room and the roof

Where the building has collective heating, ask to see the plant or at least to be told its age. A boiler in its twentieth year is a foreseeable replacement, and in a co-ownership that means a vote, a call for funds, and your millièmes.

The roof and facade run on their own cycles, with facade renovation typically arising every fifteen to twenty years. You will rarely be able to inspect a roof, so the substitute is documentary: ask when it was last renewed and whether any technical study or energy audit is under way.

Energy upgrading of the envelope has moved from optional to foreseeable, which matters twice. It is a future collective expense, and it is a constraint on you individually, because the facade and often the windows are common parts and improvement works require an absolute majority of all millièmes, present or not.

Translating observation into liability

What you see outside the apartment should be checked against three documents rather than estimated.

The minutes of the last three general assemblies, which show works voted, works postponed and disputes. Works voted and not yet called for are an existing liability attaching to the lot.

The reconciled charges accounts for two completed years, which show what the building actually costs to run.

The fonds de travaux, compulsory in every Luxembourg co-ownership since 1 August 2023 under the law of 30 June 2022. Its annual contribution is voted at the assembly but cannot fall below a floor set by grand-ducal regulation per square metre of energy reference surface, graded by the building's thermal insulation class, and allocated pro rata millièmes. Ask what the fund holds today, what the contribution is, and what arrears exist across the co-ownership.

How the building is governed, and why that predicts its future

Three organs. The syndic is the executive agent, professional beyond a certain number of lots, and obliged to pursue recovery of unpaid charges on its own initiative. The general assembly is sovereign and meets at least once a year, with decisions recorded in minutes. The conseil syndical is an optional elected body of owners supervising management.

The majorities explain a great deal about buildings where nothing happens. Approval of the accounts, the annual budget and ordinary maintenance or repair works require a simple majority of those present or represented. Appointing or removing the syndic, authorising private installations such as an awning or a charging point on your parking space, and improvement works require an absolute majority of all millièmes, present or not.

In a building with a high proportion of absentee owners, that second threshold is hard to assemble, and it applies precisely to the works that improve the building.

What this means for what you can do

Two things buyers assume and should verify. Installing a charging point on your parking space is a private installation and is subject to a vote. And anything affecting the facade, including external shading, air-conditioning units and fixings to railings, generally requires authorisation because the facade is common even where a balcony is for your exclusive use.

Storage rules follow the same logic: keeping tyres, bicycles or boxes in an underground parking space is prohibited in many buildings for fire-safety reasons, which pushes them into the cave and makes the cave's size a real constraint rather than a detail.

Three questions we are asked

Can I see the building's accounts before making an offer? Ask the seller, and if necessary through the notary. A seller unable to produce the accounts and minutes of their own co-ownership is a reason to slow down rather than an administrative inconvenience.

Does a well-maintained building always mean high charges? Not necessarily. It usually means charges that are predictable, which is the more useful property. Deferred maintenance produces low charges followed by a special call for funds.

How much weight should the common parts carry in a decision? Enough to be a tiebreaker between two similar apartments, and occasionally enough to be decisive on its own. The apartment can be renovated; the co-ownership cannot.

Reading the syndic as well as the building

You are not only buying into a building; you are buying into a management relationship that continues for as long as you own the lot. Two things are worth establishing before the offer.

The first is responsiveness. Put six written questions to the syndic through the seller or the notary: the works fund balance and the contribution for this lot, the building's insulation class, any works voted and not called, total arrears, when the roof, facade, lift and plant were last renewed, and whether any technical study is under way. A reply in two days and a reply in three weeks describe two different buildings.

The second is cost and scope. Ask whether extraordinary general assemblies are billed separately and at what rate, since a building that needs a vote for improvement works and charges for convening one is a building where improvements are doubly discouraged.

The syndic can be changed, but only by an absolute majority of all millièmes, present or not, which is the harder of the two thresholds. Treat the current arrangement as a feature of the property rather than as something you will fix.