Moving to Luxembourg

What to learn about your building in the first week in Luxembourg

The apartment is what you chose. The building is what you joined, and in an apartment a surprising share of what goes wrong is a common-part matter rather than a landlord one.

Get the syndic's name and number on day one

Most Luxembourg apartments sit inside a copropriété governed by the amended law of 16 May 1975, managed by a syndic appointed by the general assembly of owners.

The lift, the entrance, the stairwell, the cellar corridors, the roof, the facade and the heating plant where it is collective are all common parts. When one of them fails, the route is the syndic rather than your landlord, and knowing that before something fails saves a day.

Ask your landlord or the agent for the syndic's name and the emergency contact, and keep it with the lease rather than in an email you will not find.

Read the two documents you are bound by

Ask for the règlement de copropriété and any règlement d'ordre intérieur. Most leases bind the tenant to respect them, which means you have agreed to documents you may never have been shown.

They govern the things people discover later: animals, bicycles, what may be stored in the cellars and the parking, what may be fixed to a balcony railing or visible from the facade, and whether anything may be kept on a landing.

Two rules are near-universal and worth knowing immediately. Storing anything in the corridors, landings or stairwells is prohibited, because keeping access clear is a fire-safety requirement enforced by the syndic. And storing tyres, bicycles or boxes in an underground parking space is prohibited in many buildings for the same reason.

The waste arrangement, which is two layers

The commune sets the collection categories, the container sizes and the calendar, and these vary between communes because of communal autonomy. The building sets where the bins live, who moves them and on which evening.

Get both in the first week, from the commune's site and from the syndic or the outgoing tenant. Incorrect sorting can mean a bin is not collected, which affects every household in the building and is one of the more common sources of friction with neighbours.

Find the meters and photograph them

Electricity, gas and water, with their serial numbers and readings, on the day you take the keys.

The network operator and the supplier are separate entities in Luxembourg. Creos operates the network and performs the meter reading on behalf of all suppliers; your supplier sells the energy. Switching supplier requires no change to the meter, and default supply is regulated but priced above ordinary contract tariffs, so arranging a contract is one of the first tasks rather than one of the last.

The cave, the bicycle store and the parking

Confirm which cave belongs to the apartment, that it is numbered, and that it is empty. A cellar still holding the previous occupant's belongings becomes your problem to resolve, and its condition should be recorded on the entry inventory.

Ask whether there is a local à vélos, whether access is on the same key or badge, and whether there is a charging point, since electric bike battery storage is frequently covered by the rules on flammable items.

For parking, establish whether the space is assigned or shared and what the rules permit inside it.

The entryphone and the letterbox

Put your name on both in the first week. It sounds trivial and it is the reason a share of registered letters fail.

That matters here because significant documents arrive by post: confirmation of social security affiliation, the tax card issued by the tax administration, school correspondence from the commune, and any formal notification from a landlord, which for a rent revision must be sent by registered letter with the deadline running from delivery.

Meet the immediate neighbours

It sounds sentimental and it is the most effective preventive measure available in a building where sound carries.

In the converted townhouses of Limpertsberg, Belair and the Gare district, timber floors and thin partitions transmit far more than the street does. Complaints run from the syndic to the owner and then to the tenant, and a conversation before a complaint resolves what a letter afterwards does not.

Permitted hours for noisy activity are set by each commune's règlement général de police and are not identical across the country, so check your own.

The one thing to do before winter

Find out who services the boiler. In many Luxembourg leases the annual service and small maintenance are allocated to the tenant rather than the landlord, and it is the clause people discover in January.

While you are at it, bleed the radiators, check every thermostatic valve turns freely, and look at the corners of external walls and the window reveals for any dark bloom, which indicates a ventilation problem. Document anything you find with dated photographs and raise it in writing early, since a problem recorded in November is a maintenance question and the same problem found at an exit inspection is an argument about a guarantee capped at two months' rent.

Three questions we are asked

Can I attend the general assembly? It is a meeting of owners, so as a tenant generally not. Decisions taken there reach you through your landlord, and asking for the minutes is a reasonable request since they affect your use of the building.

Who do I call for a leak? Your landlord for anything inside the apartment, the syndic for anything in the common parts. Water damage affecting neighbouring lots is also the scenario that generates real insurance claims, so notify both.

What if the building rules conflict with my lease? Raise it before signing rather than after. Your landlord cannot grant rights the co-ownership has not granted them.

The one-page building sheet

Write it once in the first week and keep it where you will find it, not in an email thread.

The syndic's name and emergency number. Your landlord's number and what each is responsible for. The waste collection evening and the container categories. Where the bins live and who moves them. Which cave is yours and its number. Whether there is a bicycle store and how it is accessed. Who services the boiler. The entryphone code and the letterbox number. And the immediate neighbours' names.

Nine lines, ten minutes, and it covers almost everything that goes wrong in a first year in a Luxembourg apartment.

Three questions we are asked

Who pays for a repair in the common parts? The co-ownership, through the charges, allocated by millièmes. As a tenant it reaches you through the annual reconciliation rather than as a bill.

Can I put a doormat outside my door? Frequently restricted, since the landing is a common part. It is the kind of small thing the règlement d'ordre intérieur answers in one line.