Moving to Luxembourg

Common areas in a Luxembourg building: the rules, and who enforces them

Most friction between neighbours here concerns spaces nobody owns individually. The rules governing them are written down, they bind you through your lease or your deed, and they are enforced through a chain most residents never see until a letter arrives.

Who owns what

An apartment in Luxembourg sits inside a copropriété governed by the amended law of 16 May 1975. The building is divided into lots, each comprising a private part and a share of the common parts expressed in millièmes, and every owner is automatically a member of the syndicat des copropriétaires.

The entrance, staircase, corridors, lift, cellar corridors, roof and facade are common. So, in many buildings, are courtyards and the boundary structures around gardens, even where a particular lot has exclusive use of the outdoor space.

The practical consequence for a tenant is that your landlord cannot grant you rights the co-ownership has not granted them. This is the source of most misunderstandings: the landlord says yes, the syndic subsequently says no, and the syndic is correct.

The documents that bind you

Two documents govern conduct: the règlement de copropriété, and in many buildings a shorter règlement d'ordre intérieur. Most Luxembourg leases contain a clause binding the tenant to respect them, which means agreeing to a document tenants are frequently never shown.

Ask the agent or landlord for both before signing. If they are in French or German and you read neither, ask for a written summary covering five specific areas: pets, subletting, balconies and facade, works, and storage. A written answer you can point to later is worth more than a full translation you skim once.

The five rules that come up most

• Storage in common areas. Bicycles in the corridor, prams under the stairs, boxes outside the cave. The most commonly breached and most commonly enforced rules, because they are visible to every resident and because clear access is a fire-safety requirement rather than a preference.
• Parking spaces. Storing tyres, bicycles or boxes in an underground parking space is prohibited in many Luxembourg buildings, again for fire safety. If your plan for winter tyres is the parking space, check first.
• The cave. Nothing flammable, and access routes kept clear. Confirm which cave belongs to your apartment and that it is empty at the entry inventory.
• Bicycles. Where a local à vélos exists, bicycles are usually required to live there rather than in the cave or corridor. Ask whether access is on the same key or badge and whether there is a charging point for an electric bike, since battery storage is frequently covered by the rules on flammable items.
• The facade and balconies. The facade is almost always common even where the balcony is for your exclusive use, which rules out awnings, satellite dishes, external air-conditioning units and often planters fixed to railings.

Noise, which is regulated at two levels

Inside the building, conduct is governed by the building's own rules. Above them sits the commune's règlement général de police, which sets the permitted hours for noisy activity including DIY and machinery, and those hours are not identical across the country. Check your own commune's regulation rather than relying on what a neighbour or an agent says.

Practical point on older stock: converted townhouses in Limpertsberg, Belair and the Gare district frequently have timber floors and little acoustic separation between units. Rugs and felt pads under furniture resolve more disputes than any amount of correspondence.

Waste, which generates more complaints than noise

Luxembourg communes operate separated collection with specific bins, specific days and, in many communes, an annual calendar. The building adds its own arrangement: where the bins live, who puts them out, and on which evening.

Get both in your first week from the syndic or the outgoing tenant rather than deducing them over two months. Incorrect sorting can result in a bin not being collected, which affects every household in the building, and that is why it produces a disproportionate share of neighbour complaints.

How enforcement actually works

The chain is consistent. A complaint goes to the syndic, the managing agent responsible for the common parts. The syndic writes to the owner of the lot. The owner writes to the tenant.

A tenant who generates two such letters has created a problem for their landlord, and serious breach of contractual obligations is one of the limited grounds on which a landlord may terminate an open-ended residential lease. That is worth knowing before the first letter rather than after the second.

Note also what you cannot do: attend the general assembly. It is a meeting of owners, and your landlord attends as the owner of the lot. You can ask your landlord for the minutes, and it is a reasonable request, because decisions taken there affect your charges and sometimes your use of the building.

Three questions we are asked

Can I keep a pet? Building rules commonly restrict or prohibit them, and that restriction sits above whatever the landlord says verbally. Get any permission in writing and check whether it names the animal or the category.

Can I sublet or let short-term? Frequently prohibited outright by the co-ownership, independently of what your lease permits. Listing a room on a short-stay platform is one of the fastest routes to a formal notice from a syndic.

Who do I call when the lift fails? The syndic, not the landlord. The lift is a common part, and reporting it to the wrong party simply delays the repair. Get the syndic's emergency number in your first week.

The first week, in practical terms

Four things settle most of this before any friction arises, and each takes minutes.

Get the syndic's name and emergency number, and the procedure for reporting a problem in the common parts. Get the waste calendar and the building's bin arrangement, from the syndic or the outgoing tenant. Ask for a written summary of the building rules covering pets, subletting, balconies, works and storage. And introduce yourself to the immediate neighbours, which sounds sentimental and is the single most effective preventive measure available, because a conversation before a complaint resolves what a letter afterwards does not.

Then count your access devices against the entry inventory: apartment keys, building key or badge, letterbox key, cave key, bicycle store, parking remote. Missing access devices are one of the few deductions a landlord can justify with a real invoice at the exit inspection, because reprogramming a building's system is genuinely expensive.

What to do when something goes wrong

Two situations account for most disputes, and both are handled better in writing than in a corridor.

Where you are the source. A letter from the syndic via the owner is a formal step rather than an opening. Respond in writing, acknowledge the specific point, and describe what you have changed. In practice, rugs and felt pads under furniture resolve most noise complaints in converted buildings with timber floors, and a bicycle moved from the corridor to the designated store resolves the rest.

Where you are affected. Speak to the neighbour first, once, calmly. Where that does not work, report it to the syndic in writing with dates and times rather than as a general complaint, because the syndic acts on records rather than impressions. As a tenant, tell your landlord as well, since the correspondence will reach them anyway.

What to avoid in both directions is anonymous notes in the hall. They escalate a resolvable problem into a building-wide one, and they leave no record that helps anybody.