English
FrançaisHi,
wondering what other owners in leaseback resorts pay in Syndic charges (common area charges) ?
Also, wondering how water charges are handled at other resorts ?
Our charges are circa €1,984 for 2016.
This is for a Syndic that has no buildings whatsoever. No pools, no electric gates, no lifts..
There are Taxe Fonciere, Insurance, Lighting (for the small cobbled walkways of the residence which has 180 house charges. There is a small landscaped area and small grass area which require to be maintained. There is a vineyard which is also a maintenance cost (not sure who eats the grapes!).
About half the Syndic charge is for water as the Syndic holds the contract for the water for the whole site. This seems to me a very weird set up and want to know how it's handled in other places.
The understanding when we bought the leaseback was that the operator who leased the property witheld part of the rent, as agreed in the lease, to pay for 'management' fees. Of course we didn't know, nor did anyone tell us, what a Syndic was or how we legally had to be a member of one.
Now, the operator who holds the lease, a company called Docte Gestio who seems to be in the business of buying distressed leaseback residences amongst other things, witholds the rent and pays nothing to the Syndic, leaving the owners with the bill.
Be afraid, be very afraid...
Hi Sinead,
Heres my experience with Syndics
When Odalys left a local company who manage estates was appointed as syndic.
We have 68 apartments and the annual budget for running the apartments is about 110K. This is divided up in to 10,000ths called tantiemes and my one bed gets to pay for about 120 of
of these so 1.2 5 of 110K so about 1200 per year. Every apartment is different depending on square feet and the tantieme division is done at the very start.
So out of the 110K PA the syndic gets about 10K for their job and the rest goes on stuff like......cleaning, Swimming pool maintenance and materials, Building insurance, Maintenance of the grounds, hedge cliping etc, lighting of the common area, maintenance of the electric gates, mainenancd of a sewage station, bank charges, postage general maintenance, and some smaller bits and pieces
There is an AGM every year and you get a full set of accounts detailing all the expenditure before the meeting along with a voting form.. You can put stuff on the agenda and query any amount given.
If you are luckly there might be a "sinking fund" to build up a reserve to pay for the big jobs like repainting which is needed every 10 years or so. Odalys were totally against this as they saw it as a waste of money for them if they werent going to be around indefinetely. (which was the case as it turns out).
Otherwise, most years there will be a "call for funds" to do something or other...For example this year we paid extra for....recabling the apartments so we could install Internet, Individual post boxes, individual water meters (though the water is billed communally at the moment)..about 450 in total (again all divided up by apartment)
Tax Fonciere is definetely not included in our case and we pay that individually about €500 for mine. This varies by town....If that is included in your Co-prop fees then you seem to be
getting reasonable value....and if there is a sinking fund doubly so... If not them maybe there are questions to be asked.. When Odalys ran the syndic via their sister company SGIT Gestion we felt they did as little as possible. The new syndic is a little better though they are very slow to do stuff I would like to see done like repainting. I reckon it will take another 2 or 3 years of doing "small jobs" before they tackle that one. Personally I would like a sinking fund to be built up but a lot of the french owners and small investors dont seem keen on it either..maybe reckoning they will sell on.
In our case the AGM is well attended by french owners who are very keen that every penny is accounted for. You can also nominate someone onto the committee of the syndic and you can also give someone else your vote. (Proxy) We have done both.....
Incidentially, getting rid of the current syndic can be done by the owners at an AGM by putting a motion and getting a majority in favour. In our case Odalys (SGIT) walked out the door during the AGM (the first motion is to re-elect or fire the syndic) and the new syndic (who had been lined up in advance) walked in and carried on with the agenda. The whole process is very well controlled in france as there are hundreds of thousands of Syndics around the place.
So long story short..study the accounts and get someone with good french to represent the english speaking owners at the next syndic....make sure they get plenty of votes to bring with them. (the AGM will not go ahead if there isnt a quorom. A quorum means X% of the Tantiemes have to be represented or have a proxy there)
You can even claim tax relief for going to the AGM!
hope this helps
Thanks so much for that detailed response Dermot.
The use of 'tantiemes' to allocate a pro rata amount per size of property is interesting. It's something I raised when our Syndic was being set up initially but I was ignored. We all pay the same amount. There are 1-bed houses, most are 2 bed houses, and then there are 3-bed and 3, 4, 5 bed with pools. There is the Bastide which houses the hotel reception/restaurant/conference rooms/spa. Each pays the same amount!
The owners are about a third Irish, third English and rest Belgian and others. There are few French, and thus the owners have been less clued in to as to how things work in France.
Regarding the Taxe Fonciere, the Syndic pays this for the common areas only (there is a vineyard and herb garden etc). Each owner pays the Taxe Fonciere on their own property.
The owners running the Syndic appointed a management company Agence du Soleil to run the Syndic and they get €35k per year for this. However, I don't think we're getting value for money here. All costs they bear are on top of this (postage etc for AGM documents).
We also have had extra 'calls for funds' for installing electricity meters and water meters.
There is no sinking fund, but then our Syndic has no buildings or pools. (It's more complicated as the main pool is part of the Bastide which is still owned by the original developerMigues Espada of Garrigae, now Proprietes et Co., and currently leased by the operator Docte Gestio. We only have access to it by the fact that it was in the planning permission!).
As you say, there are many such Syndics in France and they do operate within strict legal structures. I had hoped that ours would have been more straightforward and transparent by now. That's why I was trying to get a view on how it works in other resorts.
As things stand, there are so many problems with the resort with owners getting so little rent that the Syndic added an extra €50k to the budget for legal fees to pursue owners who haven't paid the Syndic fees !
thanks again
Sinead