Buying Guide

When a beautiful renovation should make you ask more questions, not fewer

A finished apartment removes the visible work and can conceal the expensive kind. The disciplined response to a good renovation is the same as to a tired one: ask what is behind the surfaces, and ask what the building has decided.

What a renovation reliably tells you, and what it does not

New surfaces tell you that money was spent and that the property will photograph well. They do not tell you whether the electrical installation, the plumbing, the heating or the ventilation were touched, and those are the categories whose scope is discovered rather than specified.

Ask for four dates and the documents behind them: when the electrical installation, the plumbing, the heating and the windows were last replaced. Where the answer is that everything was renovated, ask specifically whether that included the consumer unit and the circuits, or only the sockets and fittings. The two are very different projects.

Where nobody can answer, treat the answer as unfavourable rather than neutral, and price the property on services rather than on finishes.

The categories a renovation frequently skips

• Ventilation. A well-sealed apartment without adequate ventilation develops condensation. Check for mechanical ventilation, trickle vents and working extractors in the kitchen and bathroom, and look at the corners of external walls and window reveals for any dark bloom.
• Windows on the rear elevation. In converted stock it is common to find upgraded glazing on the street side and original glazing behind. Put a hand near every frame.
• Acoustic separation. New flooring over timber joists looks excellent and transmits sound. Stand in the main bedroom with the window closed and stay silent for thirty seconds.
• The riser positions. A relocated bathroom needs drainage fall. Ask how it was achieved, because a poorly executed relocation is a recurring problem rather than a one-off.

The energy passport, which a renovation may or may not have moved

Ask for it, and ask whether it was reissued after the works. A cosmetic renovation does not change a classification; an envelope renovation does.

This is now a financing question rather than only a running-cost one.

In an apartment the envelope is largely common. The facade, and often the joinery, belong to the copropriété, and improvement works require an absolute majority of all millièmes at the general assembly, present or not. So a renovated interior in a poorly performing building is a property whose classification the owner cannot fix alone.

The building, which no interior renovation touches

Under the amended law of 16 May 1975 the structure, roof, facade, staircases and collective equipment are common parts. A beautifully renovated apartment inside a building facing a facade renovation is a purchase with a bill attached, allocated by millièmes.

Ask for the minutes of the last three general assemblies, the reconciled charges for two completed years rather than the monthly provision, the balance and annual contribution of the fonds de travaux, whether any works have been voted and not yet called for, and the level of arrears across the co-ownership.

Since 1 August 2023 every Luxembourg co-ownership must hold that works fund, with a minimum annual contribution set per square metre of energy reference surface and graded by the building's thermal insulation class. Works voted and not yet called are an existing liability rather than a risk, and should be priced at full value.

Was the work authorised?

This is the question that most often goes unasked. Anything touching a load-bearing element or the building's common systems requires the general assembly's authorisation, and private installations are subject to a vote.

Where a renovation removed a wall, relocated a bathroom, altered the facade or added an external unit, ask to see the authorisation in the assembly minutes. An unauthorised alteration is a problem that transfers with the lot, and it is considerably cheaper to discover before an offer than afterwards, since an accepted offer here leads to a compromis de vente, which is a binding contract rather than a preliminary step.

Renovation and resale, which pull in different directions

Energy work widens the pool of buyers who can finance a property. Highly personalised interior work narrows it, and so does a layout change that removed a bedroom to enlarge a living room.

Note also that in a co-ownership a structural change cannot simply be reversed: the structure is common, so a change made with a vote requires another vote to undo. What looks like flexibility in a renovated apartment is frequently permanence.

Three questions we are asked

Should I pay a premium for a finished apartment? Sometimes, and the premium is justified by the services rather than the finishes. Establish which were included before deciding what the premium buys.

Are invoices and guarantees worth asking for? Yes, and a seller who kept them has usually had the work done properly. Their absence is not proof of anything and it is information.

What if the renovation was done by the seller themselves? Ask about certification on anything electrical or involving gas. A lender and an insurer will both care, and so will your eventual buyer.

The questions to put in writing before offering

Six lines, to the seller through the agent or the notary, and the answers should be written rather than reassuring.

Which trades were included in the renovation, specifically whether the electrical consumer unit and circuits were replaced or only the fittings. When the plumbing, heating and windows were last replaced. Whether the energy passport was reissued after the works. Whether any authorisation from the general assembly was required and obtained, and where it appears in the minutes. Whether invoices and guarantees are available. And whether anything electrical or gas-related was certified.

The speed and precision of the reply is itself information. A seller who renovated properly generally kept the paperwork, and a seller who cannot answer is telling you where to concentrate your contingency.

Sequencing, and what a good renovation should have followed

Work in an apartment runs in a fixed order, and asking whether it was followed tells you a great deal about how the job was done.

Services first, because electrical, plumbing, heating and ventilation all run inside walls, floors and ceilings. Then plaster and screed, then joinery, then tiling, then flooring, then decoration. A kitchen installed before the electrical installation was assessed is a kitchen that comes out again, and a renovation that inverted the order will show it eventually rather than immediately.

Where the seller can describe the sequence and produce the invoices, that is a strong signal. Where the description is of surfaces only, the likely answer is that the services were left alone, which is not a fault but is a cost you are inheriting rather than avoiding.

Three questions we are asked

Does a renovation reset the building's liabilities? No. The structure, roof and facade are common parts, and an immaculate apartment inside a building facing a facade renovation carries that liability through its millièmes.

Is a renovated apartment easier to resell? On energy work, yes, because it widens the pool of buyers who can finance it. On highly personal interior work, frequently the opposite.