A debtor owner sells: opposing payment of the sale price

A sale is the best chance to recover unpaid charges. The window lasts fifteen days, and many buildings let it pass.

An owner has been in arrears for two years, reminders lead nowhere, the procedure drags — then he sells his flat. Paradoxically, that is the best possible news for the building: at the moment of a sale the money exists, and it passes through a trusted third party.

Provided the manager triggers the mechanism, within a window counted in days.

How it works

The notary handling the sale notifies the manager of the transfer. From receipt of that notice the manager has a very short period — fifteen days — to oppose payment of the sale price, up to the sums owed by the seller to the association.

The notary then withholds the corresponding amount from the price. The balance goes to the seller, and the association’s claim is settled from the funds held.

What opposition does not do

It does not stop the sale. Many owners imagine the manager can “block” a transfer over arrears: that is not so, and it should not be implied. The deed is signed normally.

What is withheld is part of the price, and only up to what is owed. Opposition is a recovery tool, not a veto.

The deadline is the only real difficulty

Past the deadline, opposition has no effect. That period runs from receipt of a notice that arrives without warning, often during holidays, and that must land with someone able to quantify the debt immediately.

• An owner account not kept current makes quantification impossible in time.
• A short-staffed manager in August misses the transfer notice.
• A disputed, unprovisioned or badly allocated debt causes hesitation at the worst moment.
• A badly quantified opposition exposes the association, and is challenged.

The board does not run the procedure, but it does control the preparation: knowing the arrears position at any time is what allows an answer within hours. See the recovery procedure and checking the accounts.

A missed opposition turns a recoverable debt into a claim to chase for years.

The board’s part

Not to file the opposition — that is the manager’s job — but to make it possible. Three habits suffice.

• Ask for the arrears position at every board meeting, not only before the general meeting.
• Tell the manager about any sale known in the building: board outside, viewings, listing.
• Check, the following year, that the sums actually reached the association’s account.

The second habit is the most effective and the most neglected: in a building, a sale in preparation is always visible before the notary writes.

The pre-sale statement, the other half of the mechanism

Before the sale, the notary asks the manager for a statement of the lot’s accounting position. It tells the buyer what remains owed and what lies ahead. An approximate statement generates disputes after the sale, sometimes against the association itself.

See the pre-sale statement: both mechanisms rest on the same bookkeeping, and fail for the same reasons when it is not kept.

When the debt is old

A sale can also reveal that no procedure has been started for years. That is the signal of a building sliding: arrears are, in effect, financing everyone else’s charges. See buildings in difficulty.

Track arrears with CoproHarmony

CoproHarmony lets the board follow arrears from one year to the next and keep a record of reminders: the position is known before the notary writes. Create your free space.