Community or association of owners

1. Does your national law envisage that the owners of the apartments are organised in any type of association or community to take decisions about common interests in the building or block which their apartments belong to?

The law has created 4 bodies:

• The General Assembly of Co-owners;
• The Board of Co-ownership that controls the syndicus; sometimes not compulsory i.e in small condominiums;
• The syndicus who represents the Association for example to bring a lawsuit against those proprietors who haven’t paid for common expenses;
• The Association of Co-owners.

Note that the Association of Co owners is not the owner of the common parts!

2. In this case, does Law this association have a legal personality?

Yes.

Nice to know: the Association of Co-owners is entered in the business register by the Registrars in their function of civil servant in the organisation of the Ministry of Finances.

3. Otherwise, are these matters dealt with under the ordinary regime for co-ownership, or are there special features in these cases?

See 1. Only the rules of forced co-ownership of buildings apply, not the rules of the other two forms of co-ownership.

Normally all the rules are spelled out in the statutes of the building and the regulation of co-ownership. This is normally done by the builder/developer. These rules are rarely changed afterwards, given the necessity to find a large majority (or even unanimity) in the General Assembly of Co-owners.