Can Syndic decide alone who would execute works?

[vladojko]

Hi,

Sorry for message in English, I am not able to properly express myself in writing in NL although I can read it and understand without problems.

In our apartment building one of the co-owners is appointed as syndic. During the last meeting, the decision was made to do the thermal isolation of the garage entrance, which actually would only benefit the syndic alone as his apartment is above the garage entrance passage.

In the meanwhile, the water leaks problems occurred in the building and it is very possible that we would need to urgently fix the facade and it is likely that the price will be very high. The meeting of the co-owners is scheduled to discuss that, and in the email exchange it was mentioned by some co-owners that no other works should be executed right now before we see how much it would cost us to repair the facade.

One week before the scheduled meeting, the workers appeared onsite and started installing the isolation for the syndic's apartment. He did not notify anyone that works would occur, neither he shared the received offers and the price of works. The co-owners including me strongly believe that he was afraid that previous decision of isolation work for his apartment would be revoked and he hurried to execute the works on common budget before the meeting, so we can't change the decision anymore.

What can we do in this situation? Was syndic obliged to show the costs and valid offers before execution of the work?

Thanks for your opinions.

[An Darcy]

You'll need to check what exactly the meeting report says about the approved works and whether the administrator ("syndic") was given a free hand regarding offers and prices.
It would also be useful to check earlier meeting reports regarding the minimal amount for approval of offer quotes.
Hope this helps somewhat.

[vladojko]

There was a meeting yesterday and now things are bit more clear. It seems that syndic is planning to sell his apartment, and reason for the works was to improve the energy efficiency of his apartment with the isolation, so he can get better value on the energy certificate audit, which would in turn increase the value of this property. Very nice trick to do that from the common budget The cost was ~5000 EUR (approximately yearly reserves that we collect) and nobody in the building knew when, who and for how much would execute the works.

If I am looking in the extract from the law about rights of the syndic, he should have legal right to decide on small amounts only and for the bigger amounts that should be discussed and voted by everyone. The minimal amount needs to be specified in the basis act of the building, but after looking in our basis act I could not ind any reference to that amount.

[An Darcy]

There was a meeting yesterday and now things are bit more clear.
It seems that syndic is planning to sell his apartment, and reason for the works was to improve the energy efficiency of his apartment with the isolation, so he can get better value on the energy certificate audit, which would in turn increase the value of this property. Very nice trick to do that from the common budget The cost was ~5000 EUR (approximately yearly reserves that we collect) and nobody in the building knew when, who and for how much would execute the works.

If I am looking in the extract from the law about rights of the syndic, he should have legal right to decide on small amounts only RIGHT and for the bigger amounts that should be discussed and voted by everyone RIGHT. The minimal amount needs to be specified in the basis act of the building NO, the general assembly of co-owners must decide by majority vote on
a) the sum above which approval of estimates is required and
b) the number of estimates/offers/quotes the "syndic" needs to present to the assembly to choose from and approve by vote ("mededinging")
The "syndic" cannot just grab the money in the kitty and use it as he sees fit without the prior consent of the general assembly (AV).
Hope this helps some more.