Alarm raised over level of unpaid 'copropriété' fees in France
Authorities urge legal reforms as unpaid service charges suggest €2billion in arrears
Flat owners who refuse or delay paying service charges means the courts are swamped with cases
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The management of apartment blocks (copropriétés) in France is being undermined by flat owners who refuse to pay charges for their upkeep and insurance, authorities have warned.
The president of the Commissaires de justice trade body, Benoît Santoire, has called for a change in the law to give commissaires, previously known as huissiers, power to reclaim sums a month after sending warning letters, instead of having to go to court.
“We estimate that 720,000 copropriétés have issues due to people not paying,” said Mr Santoire.
“The situation has never been so bad.”
Read more: Flat-owners in France face rising costs for building management
Legal action threats
There are around 880,000 copropriétés in France.
Mr Santoire said the number of cases meant that courts were swamped with requests for judgments against slow payers, leading to delays in chasing the money owed.
He gave the example of the building he lived in, where the management took legal action after a resident failed to pay.
“We came out of court after making our case but it remains in the hands of the judge for an indeterminate time,” he said.
“Meanwhile the insurance on the building has to be paid, which means the only solution is to ask the people who have already paid to give more, to cover those who are not paying.”
The figures from the Commissaires de justice, which suggest a total €2billion in unpaid bills, are considerably higher than other projections.
In 2024, the Senate estimated 215,000 copropriétés were owed at least 20% of their annual budget by those residents who had not paid.
Read more: Why is the heating always on in our French apartment building?
And in 2023, the Registre des copropriétés said 9% of apartment buildings had budgets affected by 31% of residents not paying charges.
Mr Santoire said his figures included many buildings of 10 flats or fewer, which did not appear in the other statistics.
Management charges for flat owners in Paris jumped a record 10.7% in 2023, according to a report by the Fédération Nationale de l'Immobilier, released at the start of the year. The increase was due to soaring energy prices as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and an increase in the SMIC minimum wage.
