Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? In fact this flowery language translates as “The special meeting of the Homeowners’ Association for the Apollo building.” Much less impressive in English. (Our building is called Apollo because it was built on the site of an old movie theater with that name.)
We couldn’t attend prior meetings of the HOA meetings for our building, because they’d been held when we were not in La Rochelle, But we’d been sent the materials for these meetings and the reports of actions taken at them. These were written in very formal language, as if what was being described were the decisions to be made by Emperor Napoleon himself. Being both former attorneys, Suzie and I were interested to see what one of these meetings was really like.
Under French law, every HOA must hire a manager, called the “syndic,” to take care of HOA business. Most larger buildings hire professionals to serve as syndic. The syndic for our building is a large real estate company called Pichet. One of their senior employees, Madame Bouquet, handles the affairs of the HOA, after receiving guidance from the HOA members.
Pichet’s La Rochelle offices were just a 15-minute walk from our apartment (even in a big broken-foot boot). The HOA meeting took place at 2:30 in a small, slightly stuffy meeting room. We were interested to meet the other owners, although many we already knew. Madame Bouquet and the HOA’s President lead the meeting.
Although there was effectively just one issue to discuss, the agenda for the meeting and the accompanying materials seemed daunting.
The first order of business was to elect a President for the meeting, even though the HOA President was already there. One of the owners volunteered and was duly elected. Next on the agenda was the election of a “Scrutateur.” I found the word very funny, and asked what a Scrutateur’s role was. Madame Bouquet answered (and here I paraphrase) that it was to make sure the actions taken during the meeting were procedurally proper and on the up-and-up. I personally think I’d make a damned fine Scrutateur. I don’t think any “Scrutateur” was nominated or elected. The next item was the election of the meeting’s Secretary, a role unanimously given to Madame Bouquet.
That accomplished, the meeting turned to the one substantive issue: What to do about the sometimes-broken elevators in the building. Madame Bouquet described (extremely clearly and relatively succinctly) the history. The HOA had approved hiring a company (Kone) to rehabilitate parts of the elevator, but when it came time to sign the contract, Kone said it could not do the work unless the elevators’ counter-weights were also replaced — something Kone had never previously mentioned, and which would increase the cost by 50%. Madame Bouquet rightly saw this as a bait-and-switch, and tried to force Kone to keep to the originally-approved agreement. Alas, Madame Bouquet’s efforts were in vain. Kone would not budge.
So now the HOA had to decide whether to give the rehabilitation work to another company, whose proposal had been second to Kone’s at the prior meeting. It would charge roughly the same for the work, and had a good reputation, so Madame Bouquet requested, on behalf of the Syndic, HOA approval of this contract. There wasn’t much discussion; everyone agreed the elevators needed fixing, and the Syndic had already collected all but 1,500 euros of the amount necessary to cover the costs. Ayes all around, a unanimous decision.
After the substantive business was done, the meeting devolved (as HOA meetings often do) into talk of various dissatisfactions. (In fairness, Item 10, “Informations diverses – Vie de la Copropriéte,” contemplated this.) There were discussions of old problems (the non-Apollo neighbor who leaves garbage bags and boxes in the courtyard being the most discussed) and new ones (Suzie’s question about who had the right to leave bicycles in the relatively small bicycle storage room). Soon multiple conversations were going on. I finally raised my had and asked Madame Bouquet, “Est-ce que nous avons autres choses a faire?” (Do we have other things to do?). She said we were free to leave, and after saying good-bye to everyone, we did.
As these things go, the meeting was actually pretty efficient, and not the least bit formal once we got down to substantive business.
Most amazing to me was the fact that I was able to take in 100% of Madame Bouquet’s explanations and 90% of the HOA members comments. I’m still not able to speak French well, but understanding it has almost become second nature.
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