How to sell an apartment in a co-ownership: the file and the final statement

Your apartment is under a preliminary sale agreement (compromis), the notary has a date in mind for the deed, and one document from the property manager (syndic) is still missing. That is almost always where a sale slips: not on the price, not on the buyer's mortgage, but on figures nobody asked for early enough.

To sell an apartment in a co-ownership adds a layer to an ordinary sale. You are transferring a unit, and with it a share in the common parts, a position in running accounts and a seat at the general meeting (GM). The Civil Code organises this handover: information to be provided before signature, a rule for splitting the charges, and a deduction from your price on the day of the deed. This page follows the sale in your order, from the decision to sell to the final statement.

Ask for the syndic's file as soon as the apartment goes on sale

Before the contract, the offer or the promise to purchase is signed, the buyer must have received a set of information about the co-ownership. You, the notary or the professional intermediary pass it on, and the syndic provides it on simple request within fifteen days (Art. 3.94, § 1, extract of the Civil Code published by the BIV, in Dutch). Six sets of items are covered: the amount of the two funds, any arrears you owe, the status of the calls to the reserve fund decided before the sale, pending court proceedings, the minutes of the general meetings of the last three years together with the service charge statements of the last two financial years, and the latest approved balance sheet. The full list, and how to word the request, is in documents required for a sale.

Fifteen days look short from the syndic's side and long from the side of a buyer in a hurry. Our advice fits in one sentence: write to the syndic on the day you decide to sell, not on the day a candidate turns up. A volunteer syndic on holiday, a firm handling forty buildings, a financial year not yet approved: each of these setbacks costs a week, and they always add up at the worst moment.

The costs the syndic charges for providing this information are yours to bear (Art. 3.94, § 4). The law does not set the amount. It is usually provided for in the syndic contract, among the additional services, and it is better asked for in writing before you order the file than discovered on the statement at the deed. If your building runs simplified accounts, also expect some documents to be put together by hand.

Who pays for works voted before the sale?

The basic rule rather works in your favour, which is precisely why your buyer will want to discuss it. Expenses for conservation, maintenance, repair and renewal decided before the certain date of the transfer of ownership, but whose payment is requested after that date, are borne by the new co-owner, unless otherwise agreed (Art. 3.94, § 2). The same applies to the calls for fundsGlossaryRequest for payment sent by the syndic to the co-owners to top up the working capital fund or the reserve fund. With each call for funds, the syndic states which portion will go to the reserve fund. See the glossary for the reserve fund approved before the transfer.

A façade project voted in March and invoiced in November therefore falls on your buyer if the deed has been signed in between. Ordinary charges follow a different date: the buyer bears them from the moment he actually uses the common parts, in practice usually the day of the notarial deed. Two dates, two regimes, one preliminary agreement to settle them.

This regime is not mandatory between seller and buyer. You can agree the opposite, split, set a cap. Our view: a written agreement with figures, based on a statement from the syndic, is worth more than a boilerplate clause referring to the law. An amount that has been named gets discussed once, around the table. An amount that is discovered gets discussed before the justice of the peace. The majorities used to vote on those works are explained in voting rules and majorities, and the same trade-off seen from the other side in buying an apartment in a co-ownership.

Your share of the working capital fund comes back to you, your share of the reserve fund does not

Two pots, two outcomes, and the difference often runs into hundreds of euros.

You remain a creditor of the association for the part of the working capital fundGlossaryTotal of the advances paid by the co-owners, as provision, to cover recurring expenditure such as heating and lighting of the common parts or management fees. It is held in a separate account in the association's name. See the glossary corresponding to the period during which you no longer use the common parts (Art. 3.94, § 5). The syndic draws up a statement at that date, and the balance is refunded to you, or claimed from you if it is negative. Ask for this statement: it does not always arrive on its own, and it is all the harder to claim six months after the deed, when the file is closed for everyone except you.

Your share of the reserve fundGlossaryTotal of the periodic contributions intended for non-recurring expenditure, such as replacing the heating system or the lift. It becomes mandatory no later than five years after provisional acceptance, with an annual contribution of at least 5% of the previous financial year's ordinary service charges, unless the general meeting decides otherwise by a four-fifths majority. See the glossary, on the other hand, remains the property of the association, under the same article. You do not get it back, even after fifteen years of payments. Hence the widespread practice of asking the buyer to reimburse it in the preliminary agreement. The request is defensible: the buyer takes over a building with savings already built up, which reduces his own calls for funds. It is calculated from the latest approved balance sheet, and negotiated like the rest of the price. How the two funds work is set out in working capital and reserve fund.

What does the notary withhold from your price?

On the day of the deed, the notary does not pay you the price without having questioned the syndic. He has done so by registered post, and the syndic had thirty days to reply about the expenses decided before the transfer, the calls for funds and the debts arising from pending disputes; failing a reply, the parties are informed (Art. 3.94, § 2). Within thirty days of the deed, the movement reverses: the notary informs the syndic of the date of the deed, the unit concerned and the identity of the parties (Art. 3.94, § 3).

From the sums due to you, he withholds your arrears of charges, ordinary and extraordinary, the costs of recovering those arrears and the costs of providing the information (Art. 3.95). Preferential creditors, then mortgage creditors, then those who have served him with a garnishment or an assignment of debt rank ahead of the association.

If you dispute the amount, the notary notifies the syndic by registered post within three working days of the signing of the deed. He can only validly pay you if no protective or enforcement garnishment has been served within twenty working days of that notice. Disputing the amount is therefore a real remedy, with a short timetable; it is useless as a delaying tactic.

The practical lesson is arithmetic. Arrears settled in March cost their amount. The same arrears discovered on the day of the deed cost their amount, the recovery costs, and sometimes a few weeks' wait for your balance. Recovery from the association's side is described in co-owner not paying, and the logic of the statements in annual service charge statement.

The certificates to order before the first advert

Not every document in an apartment sale comes from the syndic, and the ones that do not are often the ones that push a date back. The rules below are the Flemish ones; if your apartment is in Brussels, the Brussels rules apply and your notary will confirm which certificates you need.

The energy performance certificate (EPC) must exist before you offer the apartment for sale. You have it drawn up by a type A energy assessor (energiedeskundige type A), the energy label and the energy score must appear in the advert, and at the notarial transfer you hand the buyer a valid EPC. An EPC is valid for at most ten years, and for a sale it must have been drawn up from 2019 onwards (EPC of a residential unit, Vlaanderen.be, in Dutch). For an apartment in a building from before 2001, you also need an asbestos certificate (asbestattest) for your private part, whose contents must be disclosed to the buyer when the preliminary agreement is signed; the owners' association (VME/ACP) must have an asbestos certificate for the common parts by 31 December 2026, and if it already exists, you disclose its contents as well. Then come the electrical installation inspection certificate, the soil certificate (bodemattest), which the notary usually requests from OVAM, the post-intervention fileGlossaryFile compiled during building works that gathers the information relevant to safety and health for future work on the structure. Where applicable, the syndic must keep it in the manner laid down by Royal Decree. See the glossary for works carried out since May 2001, the heating oil tank certificate if the building is heated with oil, and the property information for transfer (vastgoedinlichtingen), which you request through the Vastgoedinformatieplatform and which must be no more than one year old at the time of sale. The flood sensitivity information also belongs in the advert (selling a home, Vlaanderen.be, in Dutch).

One point is worth recalling for an apartment: the EPC of your apartment covers only the private parts. The common parts have their own EPC, which the syndic has drawn up for the association, and its data is automatically used for the EPCs of the individual apartments. A poorly insulated shared roof therefore weighs on your result without you being able to replace it alone, and a well-stocked reserve fund does not improve your certificate. The full list of documents, co-ownership included, is gathered in documents required for a sale.

The timeline, from the decision to sell to the final statement

This timeline holds when the documents go out early. It breaks as soon as one document is missing, and it is almost always the same one: the latest approved balance sheet of a co-ownership whose annual general meeting has been postponed. If your building is in that position, tell the buyer and their notary at the preliminary agreement stage, rather than letting a date be set that nobody can meet.

General information like this does not replace your notary's advice on your file, particularly if the co-ownership has a dispute under way or if your arrears are contested. The next stage of the sale, on the buyer's side, is described in new co-owner, and the whole handover in buying and selling in a co-ownership.