CGH proposed lease amendment re COVID 19

Most owners in Kalinda (Tignes) and Les Fermes de Ste Foy will refuse CGH's request.

I am sending this letter, as will other Kalinda owners:

Sir,

By your email of September, the 3rd, 2020, accompanied by an amendment V14092020 in attachment,
corrected by your email "Erratum" of September, the 4th, accompanied by the letter dated September, the 2nd in attachment,
your new e-mail of September, the 18th, accompanied by an amendment to the commercial lease, still ref V14092020, for signature on September the 10th,
you ask us to sign the amendment which significantly modify our commercial lease.

The terms, modalities, and methods are brutal, unfounded regarding to the invoked measures and periods, do not concern tourist residences, notwithstanding the decisions you have taken, with regard to personnel management and the modification of the opening periods for the summer season, which was exceptional.

They are not motivated by any objective financial element, allowing us to assess the situation.

The extremely modest rents paid cannot justify such a request as it stands.

We can only invite you to provide us with the convincing elements, by comparison of the turnover achieved over the periods, compared to other identical periods of the previous years, of our property.

Otherwise, we can only stick to the signed lease.

To remind you that the non-performance of your obligations could inevitably oblige us to take all the legal means necessary to respect the contract which binds us and/or to obtain all the consequences thereof.

However, we remain at your disposal.

Receive, Sir, our best regards.

The advice we have received is not to sign - in particular the addendum to the lease in relation to the future non-payment of rent is far too wide and unacceptable.  Lawyers, SCP Gobert (Jacques Gobert) are representing a large group of CGH owners.  Suggest you contact them and also look at their website which has some useful articles 

https://www.gobert-associes.fr/avocats-gobert-associes-marseille-paris

Thank you very much for sharing this information! I am a Kalinda owner but didnt know how to get in touch with other owners until I found this forum.  I havent signed the amendment and will contact SCP Gobert in the morning.  

I think Kalinda and Les Fermes de Ste Foy will also sign up with Gobert. Strength in numbers, French lawyer, French as well as British owners.

hy07xbx If you are a Kalinda owner why are you not in one of the syndicates? There are 2 syndicates, one for buildings A-D and if that is you I can give you the contact for the president of our syndicate. If you are E or F they have separate syndicates but I can probably find out for you who the president is. We are all in email communication about this issue. I think we are all going to refuse the sign CGH's proposal. President of syndicate A-D has drafted a response for each of us to send and I think we will probably end up signing up with Gobert.

Thanks Marcia.  Since I bought in block E 2nd phase in 2015 I have never been told anything about a syndicate by MGM or by CGH.  Help with finding the right president of the syndicat for block E would be much appreicated.

Jessica

E41

Hi,

We are owners in Village de Lessy Le Grand Bornand.  Our first lease period expired last December and we are currently in a 2 year period during which all the new lease terms should be agreed.  Suffice to say, CGH have been completely unreasonable with all negotiation so far and very early on in the process we instructed lawyers to represent the owners' interest.  We are fortunate to have a very well organised and pro active owners group.  We also received the emails from CGH asking us to sign terms to reduce the rent in the future citing Covid19 and loss of income despite the fact that they only lost a couple of weeks low season winter income and have enjoyed a bumper summer.

Our representatives handed the whole thing over to the lawyers who promptly wrote to CGH contesting what they had said and indicating that what they were proposing to do in terms of withholding rent was in fact illegal.  No response at all from CGH to this but another email from them which was indeed a veiled threat that if we did not sign their new proposal we would get nothing!

As far as I'm aware all this has done is unite all the owners against CGH and brought our owners group into contact with many other CGH Residences all of whom are taking a similar stance against these strong arm tactics from CGH.  We went to court through our lawyers several months ago and the Tribunal directed CGH to reveal their operating accounts to prove the levels of income they say are generated by our Residence and of course, these have not been proveded by CGH yet as no doubt the figures do not support the derisory renewen rental rates they are trying to include in the next lease.  

Hi, we're owners at Les Alpages in Champagny En Vanoise. CGH are using the strong arm tactics with us, including trying to get owners to replace furniture two years in advance of the of the end of the lease (another long story).

Our Counseil is pushing owners to sign (with some small amendments) and many owners believe the Counseil is not acting in owners interest.

Question for Lottie - which lawyer did you go to, was it Gobert Associates or another firm?

thanks

Danny Boy

The lawyers our group are using are HAMET & HANNEBERT AVOCATS who do seem very well informed on all leaseback

matters

Thanks Loatie, looks like a group of owners will be instructing Gobert Associates re CGH Les Alpages Champagny

Hi, I own an apartment in kalinda E section, I only became aware of this foram yesterday so have now registered, I got legal advice on the CGH non payment of rent and decided not to sign, I will keep up to date with info on here and would be happy to join forces with other owners through a solicitor to bring a case against CGH 

Regards

               Nigel 

Hi, we're owners at Les Carroz, Chalets Belles Pistes (part of Ch. Jouvences). We've received the same message from CGH about the proposed change to lease, which we haven't signed. However, there doesn't seem to be any organisation among our syndicate, unlike fortunate others in this thread (we've emailed our syndicate "president" twice with no reply and our one other contact isn't aware of any coordination either).  We've also emailed Gobert Avocats following suggestions in the thread, but they haven't replied. We may try Hamer and Hannebert next, but does anyone know if the lawyers are only dealing with groups from a common residence, as others of you seem to have?

Not as far as I know Simon - if you email Hamet they have always been good about getting back quite quickly.  Is there any way you could contact other owners in your Residence and maybe spearhead any campaign you launch?  I feel that there is definite strength in numbers and CGH's MO seems to be divide and conquer so the more you can present a united front to them the better.

Many thanks for your comments Loatie. I'm now hearing back from some Jouvence owners, and it seems there's also momentum in this residence not to sign. Some are consulting avocats either already mentioned in this thread or 1862 avocats.

That's good - we banded together rather than each taking individual advice from a lawyer which kept the costs down considerably and has been well worth it.  If there's any way you can go to a lawyer as a group of owners I would reccommend doing so.

Quick update - all owners in our residence have now received an 'amended offer' from CGH - this time including a non disclosure clause if you accept! Smacks of desperation to me. I would assume therefore that there has not been much (if any) take up on the last 'offer' which I see as positive in that CGH have not been able to just do as they please.  The pressure and non compliance from the owners must be having an effect.  Sent straight to the lawyers by our owners group who have once again advised not to sign anything and have again highlighted the illegality of what CGH is trying to do in forcing reduced rents under the excuse of the covid situation. Our lawyers will be hitting CGH with a court summons as soon as 31st October has passed which is the deadline by which CGH have to respond to the lawyer's last communication.

We're owners at Les Alpages in Champagny. Gobert and Associes are representing owners from 17 different complexes across the Alps. They've written to CGH this week asking for financial information that CGH are apparently legally obliged to disclose, and requested a zoom meeting with them before the 31st October in an effort to negotiate an outcome to this. I'm not terribly optimistic about this but at least the strength of opposition has made CGH moderate it's proposal twice so they're perhaps on the backfoot here. 

I'm expecting our Conseil to recommend signing as they've not been very strong on this and other issues, but some of us owners, at least those who have taken legal advice,  will I suspect be sticking it out.

I don't know if we are a bit ahead of you in the whole process but our lawyers requested the balance sheet for our residence from cgh several months ago and when nothing was forthcoming a court ordered them to do so.  Nothing so far so back to court it goes along with financial penalties payable by cgh for non compliance. We only want a fair and reasonable settlement but cgh just will not negotiate........ latest for us is that lawyers have once again told us not to sign or agree to anything.  It may be a lengthy process but only by sticking together and not succumbing to more empty promises from cgh do we think we will get anywhere.  According to our lawyers there are many cgh run residences also doing the same thing and if at all possible it wuld be good if you could persuade your residence to stand firm too.  By sticking together in our opposition to the deplorable tactics of cgh we may finally get somewhere.  Easier said than done I realise if you are a bit out on your own in your residemce .....

Thanks Loatie that's very useful to know. We're going with the same avocats as you I think - Hamet & Hannebert - they're representing owners across different CGH residences.

Morning

CGH have made additional payments today to the owners at Champagny Les Alpages who refused to enter into the amended lease. Have any other owners at other residences received payments?

Danny Boy

Yes! Also to us. We didn't really expect this.

Some owners in our Residence have also reported receiving payments from CGH today.  The payments increase the rent paid to owners up to the 'correct' amount which should apply under the existing lease agreement while we are in a period of negotiation about the new lease.  I will wait to hear what our cs has to say about this but it may indicate that the pressure from all the owners and their lawyers in disputing CGH's unlawful rent decreases may by having an effect.  We have never received rent from our apartment as we opted to take a discount from the initial purchase price instead but we should now receive rental income (during the re-negotiation period) in line with what other owners get, so I will wait to see if this now happens.  Some positive movement at last.