Glossary
The condo glossary
The words you meet in minutes, a charge demand or a meeting notice, explained without jargon — and filed in the order you look for them.
54 terms definedStatutes citedEach notion goes deeper
French condo vocabulary is not difficult, it is simply old: most of these terms come from the 1965 act and have never been rewritten. Each definition fits in two sentences, and links to the page that covers the notion in detail where one exists.
A
- Absent owner
- A co-owner neither present nor represented at the meeting. Like a dissenter, they may challenge a resolution within two months of the minutes being notified.
- Accounting annexes
- The five financial statements attached to the notice of the meeting that approves the accounts: financial position, management account, budget, works. They are what the board’s scrutiny rests on.Go deeper
- Agenda
- The list of items put to the vote, attached to the meeting notice. Each must be drafted so it can be put to the vote as it stands.Go deeper
- Annual adjustment
- The reconciliation, after the year end, between the instalments called and the actual spending. It results in a balance to pay or an overpayment to refund.
- Annual budget
- The running budget voted each year for day-to-day spending: upkeep, contracts, fees. One-off works are excluded and voted separately.
- Article 24 majority
- A majority of the votes cast by owners present, represented or voting by post. Abstentions do not count. It covers day-to-day management.
- Article 25 majority
- A majority of the votes of all co-owners, absentees included. An absence therefore weighs like a refusal. It covers appointing the agent and certain works.Go deeper
- Article 26 majority
- A double majority: a majority of the association’s members in number, representing at least two thirds of the votes. It covers the heaviest decisions.
- ASL (free land association)
- A grouping of neighbouring landowners managing shared facilities. It is not a co-ownership: the 1965 act does not apply, its own statutes govern.Go deeper
- Attendance sheet
- The document signed at the start of the meeting and annexed to the minutes. For each attendee it records the principals represented and the total votes held.
C
- Challenge
- The court claim open to dissenting or absent owners to have a resolution annulled, within two months of the minutes being notified.Go deeper
- Charge demand
- The payment request the managing agent sends each co-owner. It calls either an instalment of the annual budget or a sum voted for works.Go deeper
- Co-owners’ association
- The legal entity all co-owners form automatically. It owns the common parts, enters into contracts, sues and is sued, and employs any staff.
- Co-ownership rules
- The contract that organises the building: its purpose, the use of common and private parts, the rules for splitting charges. It binds every occupant.Go deeper
- Collective energy assessment
- The energy performance assessment covering the whole building. Its deadline depends on the size of the co-ownership, and its result triggers certain works obligations.Go deeper
- Common parts
- The elements of the building given over to everyone’s use: land, structure, staircases, corridors, main pipework. They belong jointly to the association.
- Competitive tendering
- The duty to seek several quotes above a threshold set by the meeting, with the board consulted. Competing quotes travel with the meeting notice.Go deeper
- Condo board
- The body elected by the meeting to assist the managing agent and scrutinise their management. It does not decide, unless expressly delegated within a spending cap.Go deeper
D
- Discharge
- The vote by which the meeting approves the agent’s management for the year past. It is separate from approving the accounts and is not compulsory.
- Dissenting owner
- A co-owner who voted against a resolution that was adopted. That status, recorded in the minutes, opens their right to challenge the decision.
- Distressed co-ownership
- A building whose arrears reach a level that compromises its management. A court may then appoint an ad hoc agent or a provisional administrator.Go deeper
E
- Emergency works
- Works needed to preserve the building that the agent may start without a prior vote. They must then convene the meeting without delay to have them ratified.Go deeper
- Exclusive use right
- A private right of use granted to a lot over a common part — a garden, a terrace. The area stays common: it belongs to the association, not to the occupier.Go deeper
- Extranet
- The secure online space the managing agent must provide, with a minimum set of documents for co-owners and wider access for board members.Go deeper
F
- Fallback (article 25-1)
- The mechanism that allows a proposal put under article 25, once it gathers at least a third of the votes, to go straight to a second vote under the article 24 majority.
- Financial year
- The twelve-month period over which the co-ownership’s accounts are drawn up. The meeting approving them is held within six months of its close.
G
- General charges
- The costs of preserving, maintaining and administering the common parts, split across every lot according to its general ownership shares.Go deeper
- General meeting
- The co-ownership’s only decision-making body. It meets at least once a year and may vote only on items entered on its agenda.Go deeper
H
- Hold on the sale price
- The step by which the agent blocks part of the price at the notary’s to recover the charges left unpaid by a selling co-owner.Go deeper
I
- Instalment
- The fraction of the annual budget called in advance, usually each quarter. It is reconciled once the accounts are approved.
L
- Lot
- The unit of ownership: a private part — the flat, the cellar — together with the share of common parts inseparably attached to it.
M
- Maintenance log
- The register kept by the managing agent recording the building’s identity, its current contracts and the major works carried out. Any co-owner may consult it.Go deeper
- Managing agent
- The agent of the co-owners’ association, tasked with running the building, keeping its accounts and carrying out the meeting’s decisions.Go deeper
- Meeting notice
- The letter convening the meeting, served at least twenty-one days beforehand and accompanied by the documents required for each item listed.Go deeper
- Minutes
- The record of the meeting, drawn up in the session and signed by the officers. It carries the outcome of each vote and the names of dissenters and abstainers.Go deeper
- Multi-year works plan
- The ten-year programme of works needed to preserve the building, with their estimated cost. Its total also sets a floor for the works fund contribution.Go deeper
O
- Overall technical survey
- A full examination of the state of the building and its plant, with an estimate of the works needed over ten years. It feeds the multi-year works plan.Go deeper
- Ownership share
- The fraction of the common parts attached to a lot, expressed in tantièmes. It sets both the owner’s number of votes and their share of general charges.
P
- Postal vote
- A vote sent in before the meeting on a form attached to the notice. On a resolution amended in the room, it is treated as a vote against.Go deeper
- Private parts
- The elements reserved to one co-owner’s exclusive use: the inside of the flat, the cellar, the parking space. Their upkeep falls to them.
- Proxy
- The written delegation of a voting right to a holder. Three delegations at most, more only if the total votes held stay under 10 % of the association’s.Go deeper
R
- Registration
- The entry of the co-ownership on the national register, with its identity, financial and technical data. It is compulsory and updated annually by the agent.Go deeper
S
- Sale statement
- The document the agent gives the notary when a lot is sold. It sets out what the seller still owes the co-ownership and what will fall to the buyer.Go deeper
- Schedule of division
- The document that numbers the lots and allocates ownership shares to them. It accompanies the co-ownership rules and underpins every cost split.
- Secondary association
- An association formed by the owners of one building within a larger estate, to manage what concerns them alone, without leaving the main association.Go deeper
- Separate bank account
- The account opened in the name of the co-owners’ association, through which all its funds pass. It stops the building’s money mixing with the agent’s.
- Special charges
- Costs tied to a service or a piece of equipment — lift, heating, water — split according to the benefit each lot derives from it, on a key of its own.
- Special common parts
- Common parts reserved to certain lots only — a lift serving one block. Only the lots concerned bear the costs and vote on the decisions.
- Summary sheet
- The document setting out the co-ownership’s essential financial and technical data. The agent updates it each year and keeps it available.
T
- Tantièmes (ownership shares)
- The unit measuring a lot’s share, expressed out of a total of 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000. They serve both to count votes and to split charges.Go deeper
- Transfer of ownership
- The sale or transfer of a lot. It triggers the sale statement, notification to the agent and, where relevant, the hold on the sale price.
U
- Unanimity
- The agreement of every vote in the association, absentees included. It is required for decisions touching property rights themselves.
V
- Volunteer managing agent
- A co-owner appointed as agent by the meeting, with no management fee. They remain bound by the same accounting and notice obligations as a professional.Go deeper
W
- Works fund
- The compulsory reserve built up each year by a contribution. It attaches to the lots: a seller does not get it back, it stays with the association.Go deeper
These tools are calculation aids, provided for guidance only. They replace neither your co-ownership rules, nor the minutes of the general meeting, nor professional advice: in case of disagreement, your building’s own documents prevail.
Knowing the words is good. Finding the facts is better.
A condo board that uses the right terms gets a better hearing. A board that uses them with dates, quotes and photos stops being argued with at all. That is what CoproHarmony keeps, from one meeting to the next.
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