We got an email from A&B today that once again spiked my blood pressure and I didn't even open it! I had to get Matt to read it and summarize it so I didn't have to read the general tone of spite and menace of Ms B.
For those of you who mentioned the Urbanisme, read on:
The urbanisme's involvement got more tricky - they sent a PV to Mr A asking him to stop all works, submit a regularization permit or put the works right.
So...what was the response to this PV? Ms B called the urbanisme, and made her very own complaint about the veranda at the back of the property on the ground floor apartment, and the roof terrace that is part of the top floor apartment. These too were built without planning permission! The other neighbours are too in infraction (she likes that word)!
And yes...there was no planning permission for these constructions. The veranda was built, we think, in around 1980 and the roof terrace was set up in about 1989, by the previous owner of the whole property. We all purchased our properties in the house in the full knowledge that some things were perhaps not quite "en ordre", however this is the case for practically every building in the city. If you start dobbing people in for the irregular works committed by the owner before the owner before the owner who sold them the property, the fun will never end.
As a result, the urbanisme, forced to take the complaint seriously, miserably slapped a PV on both other owners too, to submit regularization permits, or remove and restore. Cue a fine of 1000 euros each, for things they didn't even build themselves. Not fair, not fair, but as the urbanisme said, they have to stay impartial and they have to apply the rules, and rules are rules, whether you are friendly, sane and sensible...or mean, crazy and irrational.
Thankfully for us, our apartment had never been subjected to any eccentric additions, and I doubt we would have bought it if it had as we wanted to avoid precisely the problems we've ended up with. It does however put us in the position of being the only ones with leverage against Ms B and Mr A (at least in their minds).
One thing Mr A and Ms B never really grasped, and still seem to struggle with, is the idea that there are rules beyond planning rules: when the building was divided into separate properties, a document was drafted called the Acte de Base. This document is a standard document which determines the manner in which we are to live together as a co-ownership of a building. Mr A and Ms B never read the damn thing until AFTER their destruction-construction spree, and were a little (a very very little) abashed to see that there were many rules, and they had broken most of them. Once I pointed this out to Ms B, she started to use the Acte as the basis for all her trivial complaints against the rest of us. She is however unable to get her head around the fact that a veranda built in 1980 cannot be "in infraction" to the terms of a document drafted in 2009 (particularly as the veranda and roof terrace are actually mentioned in the Acte).
Earlier in October, we had called our very first Assemblée Générale Extraordinaire, with the purpose of asking Mr A to put things right with his neighbours by submitting a list of the works he intended to carry out, and giving us architect's plans and perhaps a quote, or other supporting documents. We also put Electing A Syndic on our agenda for the meeting. Pseudo-syndic sent out the convocation by email.
Big Mistake.
You see, the Acte de Base states an AGM or EGM has to be called by registered letter. Oh yes. So on receipt of the email convocation, Ms B knocked on syndic's door to say they would not attend, as the meeting had not been convened according to the rules.
Recognize this guy? That's Kafka. He makes regular contributions to the story of my life.
We held our meeting anyway, and tried our hardest to get them to come, compelling them to attend as this would help them too - how can we progress in renovation works otherwise? But no, they refused on a point of procedure, so we went ahead, held our meeting and elected the syndic in their absence. We also made a summary of our concerns about Mr A's balcony and various constructions, and sent the meeting minutes to him.
Needless to say, by this point the idea of Mr A having a balcony was fairly abhorrent to all, and we were itching to get him to provide his plans for us to "nay" them unanimously...but the plans never appeared.
Let's go back to the planning permission stuff. So we then had a situation with 3 of 4 flats in infraction to planning rules, 3 PVs, and 3 requests for regularisation plans. Mr Urbanisme had by this point had the pleasure of seeing Ms B about 7 times (including 4 before they even built the darn balcony, when they kept going back hoping for a different answer), and was getting sick and tired of her. To make things simpler, he suggested the best way for the fellow neighbours to ensure their constructions were allowed was to put in a shared project and regularisation plan. Seems reasonable? At this point, I kind of lost the thread of what was going on, being not a party to the whole permit thing, and we simply assumed the other three were working away at the plans for their permits.
It was in November, I think, that we got a copy of a registered letter Mr A sent to the syndic. In this letter, he requested we call an immediate urgent AGE (emergency assembly) in order to sort out the renovations of the shared areas, and shared services.
The fabric of the house being a little out of the ordinary, we were all of the opinion we would need the help of an expert to draw up the project. Enter Mr W, the architect from next door. We were convened to a meeting with him and discussed our project. Things were going....ok...considering, and Mr W was ready to draw up a draft for us. Wonderful! Things were finally moving in the right direction! Because balcony aside, we desperately needed to sort out our boiler situation in order to fit our heating...
A few weeks went by, and we heard the plans were almost ready. We were also informed that Mr A intended to go to [enter stage left] the Juge de Paix. What for? Don't ask me, my brains were so fried by this point I couldn't have followed their reasoning even if I'd wanted to. But I was not too worried, after all, Mr W's plans were in the pipeline, we were able to hold a conversation with Ms B without considering throwing her off the infracting terrace, and it all looked hopeful, if chaotic (bearing in mind Mr A and Ms B refused to recognize our syndic as syndic, due to the invalidly convened asssembly wherein he was voted to power!).
Attempts to find a time to meet in order to finalize the plans were thwarted by the syndic's lack of availability in December.
Next thing we get is a letter from a cheerful Other Syndic, informing us brightly that on request of our neighbour Mr A, the Judge had nominated him as our temporary syndic to deal with the urgent matters of renovation of the house.
*blink*
Now, if I have to explain one more time what led the judge to this decision, I will jump screaming from the roof of the Hotel de Ville. Yes, I do know why the JdP named a temporary syndic. No, I don't want to go into it. No one understands it when I explain it, but let me just say: there was nothing we could do about this, and if someone tells me I should have challenged it I will stab them in the thigh with a spoon. Ok, good.
So at the cusp of 2010, we had: one new flat, one old flat, 3 new neighbours, 2 syndics, 3 urbanistic infractions, 1 architect, 1 misinformed judge, 1 contested AGE, 1 sacked french lawyer, 1 unwanted balcony, and a partridge in a pear tree.
I'm getting agitated again, so I shall leave this post here for now. More next week. Bon weekend!
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