This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice. Rules change and individual situations differ. Always confirm the current position with a qualified professional before acting.
Once a year, an envelope lands on your doormat with the return address of your syndic (managing agent). Inside is the convocation (notice of meeting) for the assemblée générale of your copropriété, and inside that envelope, whether you read it or not, is most of what will happen to your building and your money for the next twelve months, from the budget you will pay to the works you will fund to the managing agent you will keep or fire. If you own a flat in France and you have been treating this envelope as background noise, this guide is for you.
We are going to walk through the whole machine: who convenes the meeting, the deadlines that decide whether you can vote from London or Los Angeles, how the four majorities work, what the procès-verbal (minutes) does to your legal rights, and the one rule that lets you force a meeting of your own. Everything here rests on the loi du 10 juillet 1965 and its 1967 implementing decree, the two texts that govern every co-owned building in France.
France’s smallest parliament
Every French copropriété is run by a syndicat des copropriétaires, the legal body made up of all the owners, and the assemblée générale is its parliament. The law gives this meeting authority over essentially every decision concerning the building, from repainting the stairwell to selling the concierge’s flat. Your syndic executes those decisions rather than making them, a distinction that surprises many foreign owners who assume the managing agent runs the building the way a landlord runs a rental.
The meeting must happen at least once a year (décret n° 67-223 du 17 mars 1967, art. 7, Légifrance). Extraordinary meetings can be added whenever needed. Every owner must be convened to every general meeting, and every owner can be represented by a proxy of their choosing. Miss it, and the decisions bind you anyway. French law has no concept of “I wasn’t there so it doesn’t apply to me”. What it has instead is a short window to object, and we will come to that at the end.
The envelope that starts everything
The convocation is sent by the syndic, either on its own initiative or because the conseil syndical (owners’ council) or one or more owners demanded it. If the syndic drags its feet after a formal mise en demeure (formal notice), the president of the conseil syndical can convene the meeting personally. The notice travels by lettre recommandée avec avis de réception (registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt), by hand against signature, or electronically if you have expressly agreed to receive it that way, as service-public sets out.
The deadline matters more than the delivery method. You must receive at least 21 clear days of notice before the meeting date, counted from the day after first presentation of the registered letter, and your règlement de copropriété (co-ownership rules) can lengthen that period but never shorten it. A convocation even one day short makes the whole meeting voidable. Urgent matters are the single exception.
Attached to the convocation is the ordre du jour (agenda), and this document is more powerful than it looks. The meeting can only validly decide questions that appear on it. Nothing can be added from the floor, and as we will see shortly, the meeting cannot even amend the substance of what was announced. The agenda also arrives with mandatory supporting documents, the draft resolutions, and where applicable the postal voting form. You and the conseil syndical can require additional questions to be added, provided you ask before the agenda is finalised (décret de 1967, art. 10). Accessibility works are the special case: an owner planning a ramp or stairlift at their own expense notifies the syndic, and the project appears on the next agenda as a point of information rather than a request for permission (loi de 1965, art. 25-2).
A practical habit worth forming: open the envelope the day it arrives and diarise two dates immediately, the meeting itself and the deadline three clear days earlier for postal votes and remote attendance. The single most common way foreign owners lose their voice in the building is not hostility from neighbours. It is post that sat unopened in a French letterbox while they were abroad. Between meetings, glance at the noticeboard in the lobby too, because the syndic must display the date of the next assembly there along with a reminder that you can put your own questions on the agenda (décret de 1967, art. 9).
Four ways to be in the room
Since the loi ELAN reforms, distance is no longer an excuse. Article 17-1 A of the 1965 law gives you four routes to a vote.
In person. You turn up, sign the feuille de présence (attendance sheet) and vote with your own tantièmes, the ownership shares attached to your lot. In a copropriété, money talks in tantièmes, not in heads.
By proxy. Any person of your choosing, an owner in the building or not, can carry your pouvoir (proxy), whether that is your tenant, your neighbour or a French-speaking friend. The limits are few but firm. One person cannot hold more than three proxies, unless the votes they carry, their own included, stay within 10% of the syndicate’s total voting rights (loi de 1965, art. 22, Légifrance). The syndic, its spouse or partner, and its employees can neither receive your proxy nor preside over the meeting. A proxy left blank cannot be distributed by the syndic to whoever it pleases.
By video. You can attend by visioconférence or any electronic means that identifies you, provided you tell the syndic by any means at least three clear days before the meeting (décret de 1967, art. 13-2). Ask your syndic early whether the building has voted the necessary arrangements, because in practice smaller copropriétés often have not.
By post. A formulaire de vote par correspondance (postal voting form), in the official format fixed by the arrêté of 2 July 2020 (Légifrance), must be attached to the convocation. It has to reach the syndic at least three clear days before the meeting, and an emailed form counts as received when sent. One trap deserves a highlight. If a resolution is amended during the meeting, your postal vote in favour of the original text does not follow the amendment. You are recorded as a copropriétaire défaillant (non-participating owner) for that resolution, which, as it happens, preserves your right to contest it afterwards.
One evening, four majorities
Votes are counted in tantièmes, and the majority required climbs with the gravity of the decision. The 1965 law organises four levels, and neither your règlement nor the meeting itself can soften or harden them, as the Institut national de la consommation confirms.
| Majority | What it takes | Typical decisions |
|---|---|---|
| Article 24 (simple) | Majority of votes cast by owners present, represented or voting by post | Routine maintenance, annual budget, works required by law |
| Article 25 (absolute) | Majority of the votes of ALL owners, absentees included | Appointing or dismissing the syndic, authorising an owner’s works touching common parts |
| Article 26 (double) | Majority of all owners in number AND two thirds of all votes | Buying property for the syndicate, some changes to the règlement de copropriété |
| Unanimity | Every single owner | Selling common parts the building needs, changing the distribution of charges |
The law adds a useful escape hatch called the passerelle (bridge). When an article 25 resolution fails but gathers at least one third of all the votes, the meeting can immediately re-vote the same question at the easier article 24 majority (loi de 1965, art. 25-1). If the re-vote has to wait for a fresh meeting convened for that purpose, the notice period can drop to eight days. This is how buildings avoid paralysis when absentee owners, a category that includes many foreign owners, never send their forms.
That last point deserves a moment of arithmetic. Under article 25, an owner who does not vote is effectively a vote against. If you own 8% of the tantièmes and stay silent, you have not abstained, you have blocked. Multiply that across the several foreign-owned lots typical of coastal and alpine buildings and you see why French syndics quietly resent absentee owners, and why your neighbours will thank you for sending one form a year.
The paper trail: attendance sheet and procès-verbal
The meeting opens with the feuille de présence, which records every owner present, represented or voting remotely, with their tantièmes, and is certified by the president of the session. An irregular attendance sheet makes the meeting voidable, unless the defect only concerns vote counting and the true result can still be reconstructed (décret de 1967, arts. 14, 17 et 17-1). The meeting then elects its president, and the law disqualifies the syndic and its entire family and payroll from the chair (loi de 1965, art. 22).
The worst seat at the assemblée générale is the empty one.
Every decision lands in the procès-verbal, signed at the end of the session or within eight days at the latest, by the president, the secretary and the scrutineers, failing which the decisions themselves are void (décret de 1967, art. 17, Légifrance). The document names the owners who opposed each resolution, abstained, or were défaillants. That list is not bureaucratic decoration. Only opposants and défaillants have standing to contest a decision in court, which is why the postal-vote-turned-défaillant rule above can quietly work in your favour.
Want your own meeting? Bring your chequebook
Here is the provision almost no foreign owner knows exists. Since the 2019 reform, any single copropriétaire can require the syndic to convene a general meeting on questions that concern only their own rights and obligations, at their own expense (loi de 1965, art. 17-1 AA, Légifrance). You want authorisation to enclose your loggia, install air conditioning, or connect works to the common drains, and the next annual meeting is ten months away. You no longer have to wait.
The mechanics are precise. You notify the syndic with your questions and a draft resolution for each, plus the technical documents for any works. Within 15 days the syndic must tell you its costs and fees. Your payment starts a 45-day clock inside which the meeting must be held, on an agenda limited to your questions (décret de 1967, art. 8-1). Budget a few hundred euros in syndic fees and postage for a small building, and weigh that against a year of waiting for the annual meeting.
Small buildings, lighter rules
If you co-own a maison de village split into three flats, the full ceremonial above can feel absurd, and since 1 June 2020 it is optional. Buildings with at most five lots of housing, offices or shops, or an average budget below €15,000 over three years, qualify as petites copropriétés under the ordonnance n° 2019-1101 (Légifrance). They can skip the conseil syndical, keep simplified accounts, and take decisions by written consultation of all owners without convening a formal meeting at all, unanimity aside. Two-owner buildings, the copropriétés à deux common when a house is split between two families, get an even more tailored regime (Institut national de la consommation).
When the meeting gets it wrong
Two recent decisions of the Cour de cassation show how seriously French courts police the formalities, and both favour the vigilant owner.
First, the meeting cannot rewrite what was announced. On 6 November 2025 the Court annulled a resolution that appointed the syndic for a duration different from the one announced in the draft resolution attached to the convocation. The meeting may adopt or reject what was announced. It may not rewrite it on the night (Cass. 3e civ., 6 nov. 2025, n° 24-12.526, Lexis Veille). If your building’s meeting ever “negotiates” a syndic contract live in the room, that resolution is vulnerable.
Second, the two-month clock runs whether you are in France or not. An owner who opposed a decision, or who was défaillant, has two months to contest it, and the Court confirmed in April 2026 that the clock starts the day after the registered letter carrying the procès-verbal is first presented at your address. It does not wait for you to sign for the letter or fly home to open it, since first presentation is enough, collected or not. We dissected that ruling, its logic and what non-resident owners should do about it in our dedicated guide to the two-month contestation clock.
Beyond the formalities, remember what the meeting can now lawfully do to your investment. Since the loi Le Meur, a copropriété meeting can vote to ban short-term holiday lets in the building, a power France’s Conseil constitutionnel upheld in April 2026. If your flat is an Airbnb investment, the agenda of every AGM deserves a very close read, and our article on the copropriété Airbnb ban explains exactly which majority such a vote needs. And if the meeting votes a budget your neighbours then fail to pay, the syndicate has a fast track for recovery that we covered in the €77,000 letter.
The decision rule
Our rule for every AGM envelope
Open the convocation the day it arrives. Check the 21 days. Read every draft resolution, because the meeting can only vote what is written there. If you cannot attend, send the postal form or a named proxy at least three clear days early, and never leave a proxy blank. Then diarise one more date: the day the procès-verbal arrives, plus two months. After that, whatever was decided is beyond challenge, with your signature or without it.
Frequently asked questions
How often must a French copropriété hold a general meeting?
At least once a year, convened by the syndic with a minimum of 21 clear days of notice. Extraordinary meetings can be convened at any time, and any owner can force one on questions concerning their own lot, at their own cost.
Can I attend the AGM by video call from abroad?
Yes. Article 17-1 A of the 1965 law allows participation by videoconference or any electronic means that identifies you. Tell the syndic by any means at least three clear days before the meeting, and check the building has the technical arrangements in place.
Who can hold my proxy at a French copropriété meeting?
Almost anyone you trust, whether they own in the building or not, including your tenant. One person cannot carry more than three proxies unless the combined votes stay within 10% of the syndicate. The syndic, its family and its employees can never hold your proxy.
How does voting by post work, and what is the catch?
An official form comes with the convocation and must reach the syndic at least three clear days before the meeting. The catch: if a resolution is amended during the meeting, your postal vote for the original text makes you a défaillant on that resolution, though this also preserves your right to contest it.
Can I force the copropriété to hold a meeting about my own project?
Yes, under article 17-1 AA. You notify the syndic of your questions with draft resolutions, the syndic quotes its fees within 15 days, and once you pay, the meeting must be held within 45 days on an agenda limited to your questions.
How long do I have to challenge an AGM decision?
Two months from notification of the procès-verbal, and only if you were an opposant or défaillant. The clock runs from the first presentation of the registered letter at your address, even if you never collect it. See our full guide to the two-month contestation clock for the 2026 case law and what non-residents should do.
