Condominium management in Morocco as law 30-24 approaches

1. Moroccan condominium changes standard (from 18-00 to 30-24)

Since law 18-00 on the status of condominium in built property, the collective management of a building has rested on a clear architecture: an association of owners bringing together, by operation of law, every owner of a lot; a general meeting that decides; a syndic that executes; and condominium bylaws that organise the life of the whole. On paper the structure holds. In practice a large share of Moroccan buildings long ran informally: no accounts kept, episodic meetings, works committed without a clear mandate, charges collected from door to door.

Law 30-24, adopted but not yet promulgated, which would amend and supplement law 18-00, belongs to a constant direction of the legislator: moving condominium from neighbourly management to property asset management. Without going into the detail of the provisions — every situation being assessed against the applicable text and its own bylaws — four lines of force structure that evolution, which will take full effect on the day of promulgation.

• Professionalising the syndic: the office will stop being a role of goodwill and become a mandate exercised under rules, with obligations of competence, diligence and accounting for the mandate;
• Accounting transparency: the association will need legible accounts, separate from the syndic's own assets, and owners will need access to the financial information that concerns them;
• Better-organised general meetings: regular convening, an explicit agenda, meetings actually held, decisions formalised in minutes;
• Handling arrears: giving the association clearer means to recover the charges due, because a building without cash is not maintained and loses value.

For syndics, managers and property administrators the consequence is direct: inherited practices will no longer do. What was tolerated as approximation will become a risk of challenge — and, in time, a risk of liability. Better to prepare before the text is published.

2. The syndic: duties, liability, professionalisation

The syndic is the agent of the association of owners. It is neither the owner of the building nor its sovereign decision-maker: it executes the decisions taken in general meeting and administers the building within the limits of its mandate. That quality of agent commands everything else — it acts on behalf of others, with the money of others, and must account for it.

Standing duties

• Administering the building: routine maintenance of the common parts, supplier contracts (cleaning, lift, security, landscaping), monitoring of plant;
• Managing the association's finances: preparing the forecast budget, issuing calls for funds, keeping the accounts, presenting them to the meeting;
• Keeping the governance alive: convening the general meeting, preparing the agenda, keeping the registers, preserving and passing on the archives;
• Representing the association in its dealings with third parties: suppliers, insurer, administrations, and where appropriate in court under the conditions the texts provide;
• Enforcing the bylaws, which presupposes having read them, understood them and made them available to the owners.

The bylaws, the founding text

They are the constitution of the building. They define the destination of the building and of the lots, delimit the common parts and the private parts, set the rules of use and enjoyment, and determine the allocation of charges. A syndic who does not work from the bylaws manages on instinct: sooner or later it will settle a dispute on a false basis. The statutes themselves do not replace the bylaws — they frame them.

The syndic's liability

The syndic engages its liability as an agent: management fault, negligence in maintenance, failure to convene the meeting, failure to keep accounts, committing expenditure outside the mandate, failure to insure the building. Being a volunteer does not exempt from the essential obligations: an owner who accepts the office accepts the mandate that comes with it. That is precisely why training is not a professional luxury but elementary protection.

3. The general meeting, the centrepiece of governance

The general meeting is the sovereign organ of the condominium. Everything that matters is decided there: approving the accounts, voting the budget, appointing and removing the syndic, authorising works, changes affecting the use of the common parts. A condominium that holds no meeting is not a « relaxed » condominium: it is a condominium without decisions that bind, where every item of expenditure is open to challenge.

Preparing and convening

The regularity of a meeting is decided before it sits. The convening notice must be sent to every owner in the forms and under the conditions the texts and the bylaws provide, together with the documents needed to vote: the accounts for the year, the draft budget, quotations for the works contemplated. The agenda must be explicit, question by question: a resolution voted on a point that was not on the agenda is fragile. A rushed convening notice is the leading cause of meetings being challenged that we see come back to us.

Quorum and majorities: reason in principles

The logic is constant and deserves to be understood rather than memorised: the more heavily a decision commits the condominium or touches the owners' rights, the higher the majority required. Acts of routine management are decided more easily than major works, which are themselves decided more easily than decisions touching the destination of the building or the rights attached to the lots. Quorum conditions and applicable thresholds must be checked in the text in force and in the bylaws before each meeting — a reflex of method, not a formality.

Minutes and execution

An unwritten decision does not exist. The minutesrecord the resolutions, the voting results and the positions expressed; they are notified to the owners and kept in the association's registers. That is the document which protects the syndic when it commits expenditure, and the owner when they challenge. Then comes execution: an effective syndic turns each resolution into a dated action plan — who does what, on what budget, by when — and accounts for it at the next meeting.

4. Money: budget, calls for funds, accounts, works fund, arrears

This is the ground on which the syndic's credibility is decided — and the one where the evolving legal framework is most demanding. A condominium is a small financial structure: it has a budget, income, expenditure, cash and sometimes doubtful debts. It is managed as such.

Forecast budget and calls for funds

The forecast budget covers the running expenditure of the year: maintenance, service contracts, consumption in the common parts, insurance, fees, small repairs. It is prepared by the syndic and put to the vote of the meeting. Once voted, it translates into calls for fundsapportioned between the owners according to each lot's share in the common parts, as it results from the bylaws. Two simple rules avoid most disputes: call only what has been voted, and call according to the written allocation key, never an oral arrangement.

Accounts and transparency

The association's funds are not the syndic's: they must be identified, traced and presented. That presupposes accounts kept up to date, supporting documents preserved, a regular bank reconciliation, and accounts presented to the meeting in a form non-accountants can understand. Transparency is not only a strengthened legal requirement: it is the best collection tool there is. An owner who understands where their money goes pays; an owner who doubts stops paying.

The works fund

Distinct from the running budget, the works fund anticipates the heavy expenditure that will arrive in any case: renewing waterproofing, façade repairs, replacing a lift, renewing services. Its logic is to smooth the effort over time rather than face a massive one-off call that many owners cannot absorb — the classic scenario of the building that decays because nobody can pay for the repairs. A multi-year works plan, however summary, transforms the discussion at the meeting: the debate is no longer about expenditure endured, but about maintenance scheduled.

Recovering arrears: a graduated method

Unpaid charges are the leading cause of a condominium seizing up. Good practice is to apply an identical procedure for everyone, known in advance and followed without exception:

• An immediate amicable reminder, as soon as the delay is noticed, with a clear statement of account: most delays are settled at this stage;
• A written and traceable formal notice, restating the sum due, how it breaks down and the decision of the meeting that grounds it;
• Contentious recourse as a last resort, brought under the conditions the texts provide and on the mandate of the meeting where that is required — with a solid file: calls for funds properly voted, coherent accounts, documented reminders;
• Prevention, finally: a voted budget, a known schedule, accounts presented, and instalments negotiated with owners in good faith who are in difficulty, rather than letting the debt grow.

The owners' council plays a decisive role here. As the body assisting and checking the syndic, it relays information to the owners, examines the accounts before the meeting and carries weight in difficult discussions. A syndic who involves its council divides its conflicts; a syndic who manages alone multiplies them.

5. Training in condominium management: content, audience, funding

Useful training in condominium management is not a commentary on a legal text. It is a sequence of tools applicable from Monday morning, anchored in the Moroccan legal framework. Typical content of a serious programme covers:

• The legal framework: law 18-00 as amended by law 106-12, the evolution law 30-24 announces, how it articulates with the bylaws, reading the founding documents of the building;
• Governance: preparing, convening and holding a general meeting; building an agenda; drafting usable minutes; having decisions executed;
• Financial management: building a forecast budget, issuing calls for funds consistent with the allocation key, keeping association accounts, presenting legible accounts;
• Recovery: building a graduated procedure, drafting reminders and formal notices, assembling a file before any recourse;
• Technical management: distinguishing common from private parts, scoping works, consulting and comparing suppliers, following a job, anticipating through a multi-year plan;
• Insurance and risk: cover for the building, reinstatement value, handling a loss, the syndic's liability;
• The human relationship: handling a neighbour dispute, chairing a tense meeting, communicating with owners who share neither the same budget nor the same priorities.

Who is it for? Professional syndics who must bring their practices up to standard; volunteer syndics who carry the mandate without mastering its obligations; managers and property administrators whose portfolios include condominium lots; developers who deliver schemes and must set the association up; and active owners, notably members of the owners' council, who want to check management knowingly.

On format, ReaConsult Academy offers in-person sessions — the day at 1,500 MAD including tax — as well as video sessions at 150 EUR for remote participants, and complete certifying pathways, in a range of 15,000 to 17,500 MAD depending on the certification. For companies, syndics and agencies wanting to train several colleagues, an in-house format is fundable through the OFPPT Special Training Contracts (CSF), on request and after review of the file.

6. Condominium and value: what ReaConsult brings

Condominium management is not only a matter of administration: it is a matter of value. A well-managed building preserves and improves the value of the lots that compose it; a badly managed one destroys it silently, year after year, until the day the discount shows up in transactions. It is at that intersection that the valuer's work meets the syndic's.

The reinstatement value of the building

The association must insure the building. It must also insure it for the right amount. The value to adopt is not the market price of the apartments, but the cost of rebuilding the works as new: structure, finishes, technical plant, professional fees, contingencies. A policy set on an old value, never revised, exposes the association to an indemnity far below the true cost of putting things right after a major loss — and exposes the syndic's liability. ReaConsult carries out that reinstatement value appraisal for condominium associations, with a documented and updatable method.

The value of lots and disagreements between owners

The sale of a lot, exiting undivided ownership, disagreement on a contribution to works, a challenge to an allocation, arbitration between owners: in all these cases an independent opinion of valuebrings the discussion back to facts. It is a private appraisal, intended to inform an arm's-length negotiation between the parties — useful precisely because it is neutral and documented. Our experts are RICS-certified and our reports are consistent with RICS standards, which gives the method a traceability few agency opinions offer.

Since 2019 ReaConsult has carried out more than 5,000 appraisals in 6 cities of the Kingdom, and ReaConsult Academy has run 21 courses for property professionals. That double position — field and pedagogy — feeds our training content directly: what we teach comes from the files we handle.

Frequently asked questions

Note: law 30-24 was adopted on 9 July 2024 and is awaiting promulgation; until it is published it is not in force, and the applicable regime remains law 18-00 as amended by law 106-12. Quorum conditions, majority thresholds and convening formalities must be checked in the text in force and in the bylaws of each building before every meeting. This article sets out a working method, not legal advice: each situation is assessed against the applicable text and its own bylaws. To reach us, see our contact page or the property blog.