Definition : Quebec Entreprise Register (Registre des entreprises du Québec) - Enterprise registrar

  Section 339 of the Civil Code of Quebec establishes as a basic rule that the term of office of a director is one year. The By-law of the immovable usually describe all the terms and conditions specific to the office of director, including the duration of his mandate. Thus, a syndicate of co-owners may, at the end of the By-law of the immovable, extend the duration of the building to more than one year (for example to two or three years). At the end of the stipulated term, the term of office shall continue if it is not denounced. Consequently, if no co-owner objects to the actions of the directors, they may continue to exercise the powers conferred on them. A director remains in office until the next annual meeting, whether before or after the end of one year. He is a director at the meeting until he has been replaced by the election of a new director in order to prevent the syndicate from being without a director in the event that the election cannot be held at that time as a result of an adjournment or otherwise.

The relevant information of co-ownerships must be declared with the “Registraire des entreprises du Québec” (the Québec Enterprises Registrar). This declaration is intended to render accessible  essential information, either to the public or enterprises that deal with the syndicate of co-owners. Furthermore, at the start-up of a syndicate, the Board of Directors must file – usually by the interim director – a declaration of registration in virtue of the Act respecting the legal publicity of enterprises. This must be done no later than 60 days after the publication of the declaration of co-ownership in the Land Register.

The syndicate acts as a legal person bringing together all the co-owners of the building and not each of them individually. The Civil Code of Quebec (C.c.Q.) provides that the syndicate of co-owners arises, by operation of law, at the time of publication of the declaration of co-ownership in the Land register. With the powers devolved to it by law and exercised by its two decision-making bodies, it thus expresses the autonomy of the community of co-owners. As a result, the co-owners are third parties to the syndicate. The assets of the syndicate are thus distinct from those of each co-owner. Despite the collective nature of this type of co-ownership, the legislator has not attributed to the syndicate the ownership of the common portions, which is distributed among the co-owners according to the relative value of their fraction.