The general meeting is the body that takes the decisions in your condominium. The syndic (the managing agent) merely organises it, then carries out what has been voted. Understanding how you are given notice of it is therefore understanding how you keep control of your building.
At least one meeting a year
In every syndicat de copropriété (the co-owners’ association), a general meeting of the co-owners is held at least once each year, convened by the syndic (article 1 of the Grand Ducal Regulation of 13 June 1975). This is the ordinary meeting: it approves the accounts for the financial year just ended, votes the forecast budget and decides the items placed on the agenda. In Luxembourg, these meetings are largely concentrated in the first half of the year.
A minimum of fifteen days’ notice
Save in an emergency, notice of the meeting must be served at least fifteen days before the date of the meeting, unless the règlement de copropriété (the condominium regulations) provides for a longer period (article 3 of the Grand Ducal Regulation). Remember the logic: your regulations may give you more time, never less.
What the notice must contain
The notice states the place, date and time of the meeting, together with the agenda, setting out each of the questions put to the meeting for deliberation. Subject to any provision of the condominium regulations, the meeting is held in the commune where the building is located.
Who receives notice
Every co-owner must be given notice, except where the vote concerns only some of them. Where a unit is held by several joint owners, notice goes to all of them; where ownership is split, both the usufructuary and the bare owner must be notified. The syndic sends notice to the person entered on the list of co-owners that it keeps up to date: this is why every transfer of ownership must be notified to the syndic without delay, by the parties or by the notary (article 31 of the Grand Ducal Regulation). If you have just bought, let us know: it is the surest way of receiving your notices of meeting.
Having a meeting called
You are not dependent on the syndic’s own timetable. Notice must be given as a matter of right where the syndic is asked to do so either by the conseil syndical (the co-owners’ supervisory board), if one exists, or by one or more co-owners representing at least a quarter of the votes of all the co-owners — and the condominium regulations may set a lower number of votes. The request, served on the syndic, states the questions that are to be placed on the agenda (article 2 of the Grand Ducal Regulation).
If the syndic fails to convene the meeting, the chair of the conseil syndical may validly do so once a formal demand served on the syndic has gone unanswered for more than eight days. Where there is no conseil syndical, any co-owner may apply in summary proceedings to the president of the district court for authority to be given to a co-owner or to a court-appointed representative to convene the meeting (articles 2 and 30 of the Grand Ducal Regulation).
The fifteen-day period does not apply in an emergency. In addition, where a first meeting has failed to reach the absolute majority required by article 16 of the Law, the further meeting called upon to decide by simple majority may be convened on a reduced period of eight days, provided its agenda covers only questions already listed (article 11 of the Grand Ducal Regulation).
If something does not look right to you
Late notice, or an imprecise agenda, can undermine the decisions taken. Raise it before the meeting rather than after: it can almost always be put right beforehand, far less easily once the vote has been held. For a question specific to your own building, write to us or call the office: we will go through your file and your condominium regulations with you.
General information on Luxembourg condominium law (the amended Law of 16 May 1975 and the Grand Ducal Regulation of 13 June 1975, in their consolidated version applicable as at 1 August 2023). Your own règlement de copropriété may lay down specific rules, which prevail within the limits set by the law. This content is not legal advice.