Category: Renovation & regulations

An owner calls us, the measurements are taken, the colour is chosen. Then comes the question that suspends the whole project: does the syndic know? If you own a flat in a French building, roller shutter approval is settled before the quotation, never after the fitting. Here is what we see come through, what holds a file up, and how to build one that gets voted through the first time.

Your shutter is private, the façade is not

Two logics for the same object

The roller shutter serves your flat and nobody else’s. You operate it, you maintain it, you replace it when it gives up: it belongs to the parties privatives, the private parts of the building, and no one is going to dictate what kind of curtain hangs behind your window. The box, the guide rails and the outer face of the curtain, though, are visible from the street. They belong to the appearance of the building as much as to you. That boundary, and not a question of ownership, is what decides whether your project has to go to the general meeting.

What can be seen is decided by everyone.

We put it that way on the phone because the confusion comes back every month. An owner feels at home, therefore free. They are free as regards the mechanism and how comfortable it is to use. They are not free as regards the colour their neighbour opposite will be looking at.

Read the building’s rules before you fall for a colour

The règlement de copropriété, the deed that sets the rules of the building, is the document nobody digs out of the file, and it settles half the matter. Some say nothing at all about shutters. Others fix the colour of the joinery, the position of the box, sometimes a single model for the whole building, with a descriptive schedule that must not be departed from. In the newer residences in Nice and Cagnes-sur-Mer that schedule almost always exists, and it makes life simpler: the colour is written down in black and white, and the discussion stops before it starts. Take the time to read it before falling in love with anthracite grey.

Where nothing is written down, what exists becomes the reference: the colour already fitted, the box height of the flat below, the profile of the curtains in place. No text, but a custom the meeting will expect you to respect.

How the vote actually works

This is the heart of it, and it comes down to very little.

The syndic prepares, the meeting decides

Any work that changes the external appearance has in principle to be authorised by the general meeting of owners, even when it is carried out on a private part and paid for by one person alone. The syndic — the managing agent — does not authorise anything: they receive the request, check it, and put it on the agenda. The conseil syndical, the owners’ council, gives an opinion. The decision is taken in the meeting and recorded in the minutes.

Agreement given over the phone is worth nothing. Get it in writing.

Which majority applies depends on the nature of the work, and it is for the syndic to say which one when drafting the resolution. That sounds like a formality. It is not: a resolution passed under the wrong majority remains open to challenge, and the owner who fitted their shutters in the meantime is left alone with the risk. We would rather wait for the wording to be checked than take a box down the following year. Ask to see the draft resolution before the notice of meeting goes out, and read it with the same attention you give the quotation: a comma in the wrong place on the colour will follow you for years.

Replacement like for like

Same colour, same type of box, same geometry as seen from the pavement: the façade does not change, so nothing is modified in the sense the building’s rules mean. A great many files stop there, with a letter of information to the syndic and dated photographs. This is also the territory of the lighter interventions, curtain alone or box re-equipped, that we describe in our guide to replacing roller shutters without building work. But “like for like” has to be demonstrated. It cannot simply be asserted.

Which is exactly where a manufacturer nearby changes things.

Fitting a motor and nothing else

Swapping a winder for a motor cannot be seen from below. As long as the curtain, the box and the rails stay where they are, you are in your own home. It becomes a collective matter the moment a cable runs along the façade, a trunking appears under the balcony, or a box gets screwed to the outside wall. A radio motor, and a solar motor even more so, avoids that debate before it begins.

What the syndic needs from your file

A syndic hardly ever refuses on principle. They put things off when they have nothing to show the meeting. When a file reaches us with two photographs taken into the sun and a quotation with no colour reference, we already know it will be adjourned.

• A dated written request, naming the flat, the floor and the openings concerned.
• Usable photographs: the whole façade, then each opening square on, box and rails visible, taken with the sun behind you.
• The RAL colour reference for the box, the rails and the curtain, with the finish stated (satin, textured).
• The technical description: type of box, material, overall dimensions, projection from the face of the wall.
• An itemised quotation naming the manufacturer and the fitter.
• The chosen control method, with the position of the control points.
• An argument about harmony: how the product matches what is there, or could serve as the reference for the replacements that follow.
• An undertaking to bear the cost, the upkeep and the reinstatement should the shutter ever be removed.

A file like that defends itself in the meeting. That is all anyone asks of it.

Preparing a resolution that stands a chance

The calendar matters more than the argument

The meeting only deliberates on what is on the agenda. A request that arrives after the notice of meeting has gone out will not be considered, however good it is and however urgent: it waits for the next meeting. Every spring we see the same jam of requests submitted too late, followed by the same shutters fitted without waiting, then the same painful regularisations. Send the file to the syndic well ahead of the meeting season, then ask for written confirmation that the resolution is on the agenda. Without that confirmation you have nothing.

A shutter that has stopped working does not justify going ahead anyway. A like-for-like repair does.

Three cases, three routes

Before advising a client on how to proceed, we place the project in one of the situations below. The sorting is done on a single criterion: what a passer-by will see once the job is finished.

Situation	External appearance changed?	Goes to the general meeting	Documents that decide it
Like-for-like replacement	No, if colour, box and profile are carried over	In principle no; a written notice to the syndic is advisable	Photographs before the work, colour reference, product sheet
Motorising an existing shutter	No, unless a cable or box shows on the façade	No if everything stays inside, yes if the façade is touched	Type of motor, position of the controls
New shutter, different colour, different box, or a projecting box	Yes	Yes, as a resolution placed on the agenda	Complete file, quotation, harmony argument

Answer the objections inside the resolution

The objections never vary: the colour, how far the box sticks out, and the notion that saying yes once opens the door to anything. Deal with them in the text of the resolution rather than out loud in the meeting, where you will have a few minutes and no photographs on the wall. A request that proposes a rule for the whole building goes down better than a request for an exception.

Nobody enjoys voting for an exception.

When the whole building does it at once

A façade that becomes coherent again

In the tightly packed buildings of Le Cannet and Cannes, the façade tells the story of successive replacements: whites that do not answer each other, box heights that change from floor to floor, curtains of different generations that are not ageing at the same rate. On the seafront, salt spray adds its own mark and widens the gap. A decision taken for the whole building brings the façade back into line and sets a reference that later replacements only have to follow.

The syndic gains one point of contact and one job to oversee.

What a building-wide order changes

A single measuring visit, one colour to coat, fitting that moves from floor to floor: the conditions bear no resemblance to those of a one-off order. In the older residences of Nice it is also the moment to deal with the weatherproofing of the rails and to move to motorised operation while the access is already in place.

Have both scenarios priced. The gap makes the argument better than any speech.

Why a workshop nearby makes the file easier

Matching a shade fitted a long time ago, reproducing a slat width that appears in no current catalogue, adapting the height of a box to a lintel that is not straight: these are workshop questions, not online-order questions. We coat to the RAL chart and manufacture to size at La Gaude, which means we can hand an owner a real sample rather than a picture from a brochure. That sample, held against the existing shutter and looked at in the morning and again late in the day, ends more discussions than a whole meeting. You can look at the boxes and curtains we make, and at how the workshop works.

Three traps that end in reinstatement

Fitting before the vote

This is the heaviest risk, and it does not fade with time. The building can require the work to be brought into line, or even the shutter removed and the façade made good at your expense, long after the job. Having paid in full regularises nothing. Having chosen a good product does not either.

We have turned jobs down for this reason.

The “near enough” colour

A white is not a white. Two neighbouring references are perfectly distinguishable on a south-facing wall, and the difference leaps out when one is satin and the other textured, because the light does not catch them the same way. The classic objection, which we hear every week: “it’s the back of the building, nobody sees it”. The neighbour in the block next door sees it very well from his balcony. Have the exact reference written into the resolution that is voted: it protects the building as much as it protects you.

It is the leading cause of disputes after the event.

The box that sticks out

Projection is checked with a line pulled from the face of the wall, not by eye from the balcony. A rail wider than the old one, a different slat pitch, a thicker bottom slat: each of those details counts as a change of appearance, even if the whole thing looks discreet from below. Look too at solid balustrades and fascia bands, which constrain the fitting, and at the rules that apply in conservation areas, which come on top of the building’s own.

The questions that come up in the meeting

Who pays, if the shutter belongs to the owner?

They do, unless a building-wide operation decides otherwise.

What is the risk in going ahead without approval?

Being made to bring the work into line at your own cost, removal in the clearest cases, and a lastingly strained relationship with the owners’ council. The time saved is paid back later.

Can the syndic approve it alone?

No, not once the external appearance changes. They prepare and table it; the meeting authorises.

Is a vote needed to fit a motor?

Not if everything stays inside the box and the room. A radio or solar motor removes the cable on the façade, and with it the debate. Visible trunking, on the other hand, has to be voted.

Build your file before you order

Dig out the building’s rules, photograph the façade and then each opening square on, and note the colour reference of your current shutters. With those in hand a quotation can be written seriously and a resolution can be defended. We prepare the product sheets, coated samples and images the syndic will ask for: start your quotation request and tell us how your building is arranged. Managing agents and fitters are quoted the same way for grouped operations, colour included.

Cannes has a high share of shared-ownership buildings. See our page on roller shutters in Cannes.

A curtain stuck halfway, a snapped strap, a box that no longer opens: the worry is always the same one, and it is not about the shutter. It is about the builders. In most homes on the Riviera you can replace a roller shutter without opening a wall, provided the starting point is the opening you already have and not a page in a catalogue. Here are the three ways it is done, what separates them, and the moment when the angle grinder has to come out after all.

What “without building work” actually covers

No masonry does not mean no intervention

The word works frightens people because of what comes with it: dust, an open wall, a room out of use, paint to redo. What we call a dry renovation is an intervention that touches neither the wall, nor the window reveal, nor the joinery. No lintel cut into, no channel chased for a cable, no rendering to patch, no plasterer to bring back after us. The fitter works on the shutter and its accessories, leaves with the debris in a bucket, and the room is usable that same evening.

It is a stepladder job, not a scaffolding job.

Three families, one deciding factor

Depending on what has actually worn out, the renovation covers the curtain alone, the contents of the existing box, or a complete shutter fixed to the face of the wall or under the lintel. These three families answer to different states of wear, and they mix happily: on one house we often treat two windows with a new curtain and a third with a face-fixed unit because its box is finished. The choice is not made on the headline price. It is made on the condition of the box, judged with the inspection hatch open.

New curtain, re-equipped box, or a face-fixed unit

Changing the curtain only

This is the lightest intervention and often the most rewarding. The box, the barrel and the guide rails stay; the slats go, along with the parts that wear: curtain straps, bottom slat, end stops, automatic locks where they are fitted. We replace every strap, including the ones that look sound, because plastic that has spent years in a box baked by the sun snaps clean off at the next dismantling. The clearest sign of this kind of wear is a curtain that rolls up in a staircase, offset on one side, because the clips have let go along a single row.

A new curtain is made to the measurement of the opening as it is, not to the theoretical size in a catalogue.

A curtain cut short leaves a strip of daylight at the bottom — nobody notices it in a showroom and everybody notices it on the first night, particularly in a child’s bedroom. A curtain cut wide rubs, then scratches, then buckles.

Re-equipping the box in place

Here the built-in or tunnel box stays exactly where it is. What changes is what it contains: barrel, winder or motor, curtain, guide rails. The façade does not move by a millimetre, the opening loses no daylight, and you get new mechanics with a motor if you want one. Two conditions apply: a sound box, and genuine access to the inside of it. The inspection hatch has often been sealed shut by successive coats of paint; we free it along the joint with a blade, and that is usually the moment we find out what state the barrel is in.

A damp or cracked box changes the conversation.

Fitting a renovation shutter, face-fixed or under the lintel

When the original box is beyond use, unreachable, or when the window never had a shutter at all, we fit a complete assembly whose box is part of the product. It is fixed to the outside face of the wall, or under the lintel inside the reveal. No masonry is opened: the box stays visible, and that trade-off is exactly what saves you the building work. What has to be checked is the room available, since a balcony rail or a rainwater downpipe is enough to complicate the fixing.

The three solutions side by side

Solution	What the work involves	Effect on the façade	Effect on daylight	When to choose it
Curtain only	Curtain and wear parts removed, new curtain made to size	None, if the colour is kept	None	Box, barrel and rails sound; curtain broken or buckled
Re-equipping the existing box	Barrel, motor or winder, curtain and rails replaced inside the box in place	None, the box stays the original one	None	Complete old installation, box sound and accessible
Renovation shutter, face-fixed or under lintel	Complete assembly fixed to the wall or under the lintel, no masonry opened	Box visible outside or in the reveal	Slight, depending on position and box size	Original box beyond use, unreachable, or no shutter at all

Checking feasibility before you order

This is what we look at before anything goes into production.

• The state of the box: cracks, damp marks, sagging, enough internal width for a new assembly, a workable inspection hatch.
• The reveal and the lintel: sound substrate, square corners, a reliable fixing possible.
• The guide rails: side play, brush seals torn out, corroded channels, true vertical.
• The real measurements, taken at the top, the middle and the bottom, because old Riviera masonry is almost never regular.
• The obstacles: balcony rails, window handles, hinged shutters being kept, an existing awning.
• How much daylight can be given up, room by room.
• Appearance constraints: the building’s own rules, the coherence of the façade, local planning rules.
• Exposure: salt spray, wind, full afternoon sun on west-facing walls.

A curtain that rattles in the wind almost always means dead brush seals rather than a shutter at the end of its life. A new curtain is then enough, and the quotation looks nothing like the other one.

This survey is also what allows us to say no. We would rather tell you a light solution will not hold than force a product into an opening that will not take it. A customer remembers a shutter that rubs for a very long time, and a discount on a quotation for about a week.

Adding a motor without breaking into a wall

Radio removes the cable to the switch

What has always stood in the way of motorising an existing shutter is not the motor, it is the cable. Getting a control to a wall switch means a chase, a conduit, a patch, then a band of paint that never quite matches. A radio motor solves half of that: the control point becomes wireless and goes where you want it, on the wall by the door or in a handset that follows you round the house. Somfy RTS, io-homecontrol, CAME radio — the logic differs from one to the next, and we set out those differences in our comparison of radio motors for roller shutters.

A solar motor goes further than that.

Solar removes the cable altogether

A small panel charges a battery housed with the motor, the commands arrive by radio, and there is nothing left to run: no supply to create, no conduit, no rendering to make good. The whole fitting stays dry. This is what we recommend for an isolated window, an outbuilding with no power, or a flat where drilling the façade would need a vote at the owners’ meeting. The panel simply needs a decent exposure, which takes a few minutes to check on site. On a north wall closed in by the building next door we would rather stay with a mains motor and say so plainly. Our article on choosing a Somfy io motor covers what a connected motor changes day to day.

Think about the day it fails, too: a solar motor has a manual override, and that override has to stay reachable without a ladder.

When a light renovation is no longer enough

Some situations fall outside all of this, and saying so early saves everyone’s time. A cracked box that puts the lintel in question needs structural repair, not a cover-up. A window due for replacement calls for a built-in shutter fitted with the new joinery, which is the best moment to deal with both at once — that is joinery work, and we supply the shutter rather than fit the window. An enlarged opening is a building job. And wanting a box completely hidden where no box has ever existed is paid for in building work: that is an aesthetic choice, made with open eyes, not a technical constraint. Our range of roller shutters covers all three families, from the tunnel box to the aluminium or PVC renovation unit.

The millimetre decides the result

A successful renovation cannot be seen. It can be heard even less: no vibration when the mistral gets up, no rubbing, no stray daylight under the curtain. Improvised fixes on site — stacked packers, added angle trim, oversized seals — start to show after a few seasons. Making each unit to size in our workshop at La Gaude, for jobs that run from the hills behind Grasse down to the seafront, lets the product go into the opening as it actually is, including when it leans.

What we get asked most

Can a roller shutter be replaced without building work in a flat?

Yes, in most cases, by changing the curtain or re-equipping the box. If the outside appearance changes, the owners’ meeting still has to approve it, even though not a single brick has moved.

Will I lose daylight?

Only with a shutter fitted under the lintel, and only slightly if the box is sized to what is actually needed.

How long does the work take?

It depends on the number of openings and the solution chosen: a curtain is quick, a complete box takes longer. The survey is what allows a reliable duration to be given before the order, and we hold to it.

Can a shutter be motorised without an electrician?

With a solar motor, no new power supply is needed.

Have the feasibility checked before you buy

Open the box, or have it opened, before you order anything at all. Everything else follows from what is found in there. Tell us about your openings and we will say which solution applies and which one we are ruling out — ask us for an estimate and describe the configuration you have. We manufacture and supply; private customers are put in touch with an approved installer near them, and the joiners and blind specialists who work with us order made to size direct.

Renovating in Nice? Our page on roller shutters in Nice sets out what we make for the city, and we can point you to an approved fitter.