Managing a building together: how France, Germany, and Luxembourg regulate co-ownership

Buy an apartment in Paris, Munich, or Luxembourg City and you immediately become part of something bigger than your four walls. The stairwell, the roof, the boiler room, the garden — these belong to everyone and no one at once. Someone has to organise repairs, collect contributions, call meetings, and make decisions. The question is: how?

France, Germany, and Luxembourg have each answered that question with their own legislation, shaped by decades of political and judicial evolution. The underlying logic is the same. The details — who votes, how, on what threshold, and with what consequences — diverge considerably. For residents trying to understand their rights, for syndics navigating compliance, and for platforms building tools to serve these markets, the differences matter.

France: the most codified system

France's co-ownership framework is governed by the Loi du 10 juillet 1965, a foundational text that has been amended roughly forty times since its introduction, most significantly by the ALUR law in 2014 and the ELAN law in 2018.

Every French copropriété has two distinct bodies: the syndicat des copropriétaires (the collective of all owners, which holds legal personality) and the syndic (either a professional firm or a volunteer co-owner), who acts as the executive arm. A syndic is legally mandatory — a copropriété cannot legally exist without one. The conseil syndical, a group of elected co-owners, sits between the two, auditing the syndic's management and acting as a relay between residents and management.

Voting in France: four levels of majority

France's most distinctive feature is its tiered voting system. Article 24 covers simple majority — votes of co-owners present, represented, or having voted by post, with abstentions excluded. This is used for routine decisions like account approval and day-to-day maintenance.

Article 25 requires absolute majority — a majority of all co-owners, whether present or absent. This applies to significant decisions including appointment of the syndic and modifications to common areas.

Article 25-1 is the fallback rule: if a resolution fails to reach absolute majority but receives at least one-third of all votes, it can be put to an immediate second vote at simple majority. This mechanism prevents deadlock on decisions that have meaningful but not majority support.

Article 26 requires double majority — both a majority of all co-owners and at least two-thirds of all shares (tantièmes). This is reserved for fundamental changes such as major alterations to common areas or the sale of communal property.

In France, voting weight is proportional. Each co-owner holds a number of tantièmes calculated based on the relative value, size, and location of their unit. A large apartment on an upper floor typically carries more tantièmes — and therefore pays more charges and casts more votes — than a studio on the ground floor.

The ALUR and ELAN reforms brought French co-ownership into the digital age: syndics must now maintain a secure online extranet, co-owners may attend assemblies by videoconference, postal voting is permitted, and syndics must hold a dedicated bank account for each copropriété they manage. A mandatory works reserve fund was introduced in 2017 for buildings with more than ten lots.

Germany: pragmatic reform, stronger management

Germany's framework is the Wohnungseigentumsgesetz (WEG), originally enacted in 1951 and fundamentally overhauled on 1 December 2020 by the Wohnungseigentumsmodernisierungsgesetz (WEMoG) — the most significant reform in the law's seventy-year history.

The German equivalent of the syndic is the Verwalter (administrator). The 2020 reform significantly expanded the Verwalter's powers: they can now independently handle minor repairs, conclude service contracts, and represent the community in court without requiring a prior resolution. For larger decisions, a meeting resolution remains necessary, but the threshold for what requires one has been raised. Verwalters must now hold a professional certification.

Voting in Germany: head principle vs. value principle

Germany offers communities a structural choice that France does not. The default under the WEG is the head principle: one owner, one vote, regardless of the size of the unit. This is more egalitarian than France's tantièmes system. However, communities may adopt the value principle — voting weighted by co-ownership shares — through their declaration of division. A single building can apply different principles to different categories of decisions.

Before 2020, German owners' meetings frequently had to be abandoned because too few owners attended to constitute a valid quorum. The reform eliminated this problem entirely: a properly convened meeting now always has quorum, regardless of attendance.

The most consequential change concerns structural modifications. Previously, any structural change to common property required the consent of all affected owners. Under the new rules, simple majority suffices for most structural changes. Two-thirds majority (representing more than half of all shares) allows costs to be distributed across all owners, including those who voted against. Certain privileged measures — EV charging points, accessibility improvements, burglary protection — can be implemented by individual owners without any assembly vote.

The cost distribution logic is notable: if you vote against a measure, you don't pay for it — unless the two-thirds threshold is met, or the investment is deemed to pay for itself within a reasonable period.

Luxembourg: the founding text

Luxembourg's co-ownership framework is governed by the Loi du 16 mai 1975 portant statut de la copropriété des immeubles bâtis. Like its French counterpart — on which it is explicitly modelled — it establishes the syndicat des copropriétaires as the governing collective, mandates a syndic, and organises decision-making through a general assembly.

The Luxembourg law shares France's fundamental architecture: co-owners hold quotes-parts (equivalent to tantièmes) in common areas, proportional to the value of their private lots. The general assembly is the sovereign decision-making body. Voting thresholds follow a comparable tiered logic: simple majority for routine matters, higher thresholds for significant decisions, and unanimity for fundamental changes.

The most important distinction is that the Loi du 16 mai 1975 has been amended far less frequently than its French equivalent. While France has undergone four decades of legislative iteration — adding mandatory extranets, digital voting, works reserve funds, and tighter syndic accountability — Luxembourg's framework remains closer to the original 1975 text.

The mandatory works reserve fund is not enshrined in Luxembourg law the way it is in France post-ALUR. Similarly, the digital infrastructure obligations placed on syndics in France have no direct statutory equivalent in Luxembourg. In practice, well-run Luxembourg copropriétés have adopted these practices voluntarily, but there is no legal compulsion.

Comparing the three systems in practice

France is governed by the Loi du 10 juillet 1965, Germany by the WEG (reformed 2020), and Luxembourg by the Loi du 16 mai 1975. All three require a mandatory manager — the syndic in France and Luxembourg, the Verwalter (now requiring certification) in Germany.

Voting weight differs fundamentally: France and Luxembourg use proportional systems (tantièmes and quotes-parts respectively), while Germany defaults to one owner, one vote — though communities can opt for value-weighted voting.

On meeting quorum, Germany solved the deadlock problem in 2020 by making every properly convened meeting automatically quorate. France and Luxembourg still require a quorum, with reconvening if insufficient owners attend.

For structural changes, Germany's 2020 reform brought the threshold down to simple majority for most works, while France requires its double majority under Article 26, and Luxembourg still requires near-unanimity — making building modernisation considerably more difficult.

Digital participation is now legally permitted in both France (since ELAN 2018) and Germany (since WEG 2020). Luxembourg has not yet standardised digital participation in law. France is the only country among the three to mandate both a works reserve fund and a syndic extranet.

What this means for residents and syndics

The legal differences are real, but the underlying dynamics are strikingly similar across all three countries. Co-owners struggle with low assembly participation, opaque financial management, slow decision-making on necessary works, and difficulty holding syndics accountable. These are not uniquely Luxembourgish problems — they are structural features of collective property ownership wherever it exists.

What varies is the specific lever available to address them. In Germany, the 2020 reform resolved the quorum deadlock at a legislative level; in France and Luxembourg, this remains a practical challenge. In France, the mandatory extranet provides a statutory baseline for digital transparency; in Luxembourg and Germany, this depends on the quality of the management firm.

For anyone navigating co-ownership across these borders — whether as a resident, a professional syndic, or a provider of management tools — the practical takeaway is this: the problems are the same, the vocabulary is mostly the same, and the solutions are largely the same. The law sets the parameters. The platform — or the platform provider — sets the ambition.

This article is intended for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Co-ownership law is subject to ongoing legislative evolution in all three jurisdictions. Consult a qualified legal professional for guidance specific to your situation.