What you buy when you buy a unit
In France, more than half the homes sold are co-ownership lots. The advertised price is for the flat, but what you buy includes a share of a building whose decisions you will not have taken.
Buying in France from abroad
Checking a French co-ownership remotely before buying: the documents that change the price of a unit
More than half of the homes sold in France are units in a co-ownership: the price is for the flat, but you also buy a share of a building and of its decisions. This dossier says which documents the seller must hand over, which of them decide the real cost, and how to read them when you cannot go and see the building.
By Jean Mascla, founder of Home Select Updated · 6 min read
The documents the seller must hand over, and when
Article L721-2 of the Construction and Housing Code leaves no choice: from the promise or preliminary contract onwards, the seller hands over a set of documents, and their absence pushes back the starting point of the ten-day withdrawal period. In other words, while the file is incomplete, your period has not started to run.
That file comprises the co-ownership rules and descriptive statement of division, with their published amendments; the minutes of the last three years’ general meetings; the building’s maintenance record; the amount of current charges in the provisional budget and of off-budget charges for the two preceding years paid by the seller; sums that may remain owed to the association; and the overall position of charge arrears and of the association’s debt to its suppliers.
The overall technical survey is added where one has been carried out, compulsory for buildings placed in co-ownership more than ten years ago. And since 2023 the multi-year works plan has been imposed progressively on co-ownerships more than fifteen years old, in size brackets: it is the document that projects the necessary works over ten years and their funding.
Works voted but not yet called
The general meeting minutes are the most profitable reading in the whole file, and the one foreign buyers most often skip because it is long and technical. Three things are looked for there.
Works voted but not yet called in, first: facade works, a roof overhaul, a lift upgrade are voted one to three years before the call for funds. The default rule is that payment falls on the co-owner at the date of the call, so on you where the call lands after signature; a clause in the preliminary contract may decide otherwise between the parties, and this is the moment to ask for it.
Postponed works and disputes
Works discussed but deferred, next: a co-ownership that postpones the same agenda item three years running is announcing an expense, not a saving.
Disputes, finally: proceedings against a contractor, a significant arrear, litigation with a co-owner. They appear in the resolutions and in the overall arrears position, and they weigh on the association’s cash, hence on your future calls.
Montpellier, Occitanie
The works fund, which plays in your favour
Since the ALUR Act, every co-ownership must build up a works fund fed by an annual contribution of at least five per cent of the provisional budget, raised to at least two and a half per cent of the multi-year plan amount where such a plan has been adopted.
One point matters for a buyer, and it is rarely explained: sums paid into that fund attach to the lot and remain vested in the association. They are not reimbursed to the seller, and it is you who benefits. A co-ownership whose fund is well stocked has therefore already paid for part of its future works, which reduces the risk of an exceptional call accordingly. The amount appears in the documents handed over: it deserves to be read as an asset, just like the floor area.
What distance adds
Three habits serve an absent buyer. Have the communal areas photographed during the viewing, and not only the flat: the stairwell, the roof seen from the courtyard, the cellars, the bin store say more about maintenance than any minutes. Ask the managing agent, in writing and through the notary, to confirm the works to come and the state of the accounts. And put a list of written questions to the seller, annexed to the preliminary contract where possible.
These checks feed the negotiation directly, as our page on the arguments that land on price explains, and they are carried out during the ten-day withdrawal period, the only moment in the path where you can still walk away at no cost. The professional who runs them for you is the one who holds their mandate from you, a distinction set out in buying agent or estate agent.
What Home Select organises for reading the co-ownership
Home Select searches and negotiates for the buyer, and for the buyer alone. Your property finder checks the property, the building’s documents and the calendar before you commit, and flags what deserves a question to the notaire or a clause in the offer.
Around the purchase, we introduce the partners used to buyers who live abroad: bilingual notaire, mortgage broker, lawyer, sworn translator. Each acts under their own responsibility; we keep the calendar, from the offer to the handing over of the keys.
Frequently asked questions
Which documents must a seller hand over in a co-ownership?
Article L721-2 of the Construction and Housing Code requires handing over, from the promise onwards, the co-ownership rules and descriptive statement of division, the minutes of the last three years’ general meetings, the building’s maintenance record, the amount of current charges in the provisional budget and of off-budget charges for the two preceding years, sums owed to the association and the overall arrears position.
Who pays for works voted before the sale but called in afterwards?
By default, the co-owner at the date of the call for funds, meaning the buyer where the call lands after signature. The decree of 17 March 1967 sets this rule as against the association, but the parties may agree otherwise between themselves in the preliminary contract. It is a clause to negotiate beforehand, not a discovery to make afterwards.
Is the works fund reimbursed to the seller?
No. Sums paid into the works fund attach to the lot and remain vested in the association: they do not follow the seller. The buyer therefore benefits, and a well-funded reserve reduces the risk of an exceptional call accordingly. The annual contribution is at least five per cent of the provisional budget, and at least two and a half per cent of the multi-year works plan where such a plan has been adopted.
How do you check a co-ownership when you live abroad?
Three habits serve an absent buyer. Have the communal areas photographed during the viewing, and not only the flat: the stairwell, the roof seen from the courtyard, the cellars, the bin store say more about maintenance than any minutes. Ask the managing agent, in writing and through the notary, to confirm the works to come and the state of the accounts. And put a list of written questions to the seller, annexed to the preliminary contract where possible.
Why does the co-ownership weigh so much in the price of a flat?
In France, more than half the homes sold are co-ownership lots. The advertised price is for the flat, but what you buy includes a share of a building whose decisions you will not have taken.
What do postponed works and disputes reveal about a building?
Works discussed but deferred, next: a co-ownership that postpones the same agenda item three years running is announcing an expense, not a saving. Disputes, finally: proceedings against a contractor, a significant arrear, litigation with a co-owner. They appear in the resolutions and in the overall arrears position, and they weigh on the association’s cash, hence on your future calls.
Further reading
From the Home Select magazine
Preparing a purchase in France from abroad, or already an owner there? Describe your situation: a Home Select property finder answers within one working day, and the file starts with the right partners, in the right order.
Discuss your projectThe buying guides
- The notaire when you buy in France from abroad: role, bilingual practice, power of attorney, funds
- From purchase offer to final deed: the timeline of buying in France while living abroad
- Negotiating the price of a property in France when buying from abroad: the arguments that work
- The pre-emption right: the delay a buyer living abroad must plan for between contract and deed
- Escrow at the notaire’s: where the money sent from abroad sleeps, and when the seller receives it
- The French title deed: what a buyer living abroad receives on the day of the deed, and what comes later
- Buying a property at auction in France: court, notarial and public sales, from abroad
- Signing at the notaire’s without coming to France: power of attorney, remote appearance and interpreter
- Married abroad, buying in France: the matrimonial regime question that delays so many deeds
- Notary wire fraud: the irreversible risk of buying remotely, and the reflex that stops it
- Where off-market properties in France come from: estates, separations, pre-marketing, chosen discretion
- The buyer’s file that gets you shown an off-market property: four documents, and what none should cost
- Spotting a fake off-market property in France: the six checks that take ten minutes
- The confidentiality clause of a property purchase in France: what it commits you to, and what it cannot forbid
- Valuing a property without public comparables: the method when the property was never listed
- Online notarial auctions: buying at auction in France without travelling, while keeping your protections
- The guarantee to lodge before a court auction: the real blocking point for a buyer living abroad
- At French court auctions, a lawyer bids for you: choosing them, instructing them remotely and setting the cap
- The conditions of sale of a French court auction: what to read in them before bidding, line by line
- The one-tenth overbid: the ten days during which the property sold at auction is not yet yours
- Re-auction after a defaulting bidder: what a price not paid in time really costs the successful bidder
- Sold at auction but still occupied: what you buy when someone still lives in a property sold at auction
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