A syndicate of co-owners cannot claim consumer status and the rights attached thereto, such as the rapid prescription of its debts vis-à-vis companies.
He is a Not professional from which the craftsmen intervened to carry out work can claim their payment for five years, according to a judgment of the Court of Cassation.
A contractor, who had carried out work in a condominium building, had taken legal action four years later. The request is time-barred, replied the syndicate of co-owners, since more than two years have passed without a claim since the end of the work. But this two-year prescription is reserved for consumers, corrected the judges. Even if the consumer code protects the consumer, natural person, and the non-professional, legal person, who act in a non-professional context, the short prescription of two years is reserved for the sole consumer.
This is discrimination between consumers and non-professionals, raised the syndicate of co-owners since the consumer code applies to both categories.
A limitation period of 5 years
In another case, a syndicate of co-owners also claimed consumer status by claiming to be a group of individual consumers. But again, the court rejected these arguments.
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On the one hand, a syndicate of co-owners is a legal person and, on the other hand, it is not abnormal that a non-professional, legal person, does not have the same advantage as a consumer, natural person . A syndicate of co-owners has a trustee, a syndicate council and a general meeting. In addition, its operation is governed by law and framed by co-ownership regulations. It is therefore not discriminatory to refuse him the benefit of this short prescription, concluded the judges.
The syndicate of co-owners can therefore only invoke prescription after five years. As long as this period has not expired, he remains obliged to pay his invoices.
Cas. Civ 3, 28.9.2022, N 21-19.829 and Cass. Civil 2, 6.10.2022, S 20-16.885
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