A co-owner is supposed to be mandated by his spouse

A co-ownership trustee had taken legal action to obtain that a couple of co-owners be ordered to pay late charges. But this couple, whose husband was the usual interlocutor, who always presented himself as the representative of the matrimonial joint possession and thus voted in his name at general assemblies, raised a difficulty.

The wife, in contesting the debts, claimed that she had not given a mandate to her husband to act on her behalf, that votes on serious questions falling within the scope of an absolute or qualified majority could not be valid without a power of attorney express on its part and that, moreover, it had not been validly summoned by letters addressed to the joint ownership without further details.

These arguments were rejected since the husband had taken over, in full view of all, the management of this undivided lot.

However, the judges indicated, this is not an intangible principle and possible clues such as the absence of community of life or the appearance of "some discordance" between the spouses could suggest that the community interest created by the marriage is not certain. It could then be, in this case, that the personal convocation of both is necessary to be valid and that the votes of one, without a written mandate from the other, do not engage the one who is absent at the meetings.

(Cass. CIv 3, 1.6.2022, J 21-16.514).