Three things have to be told apart: danger to people, a technical emergency, and the administrative handling of the incident. An immediate danger is a matter for the emergency services. A technical breakdown may be a matter for an identified contractor. The syndic must be informed where the co-ownership or its common parts are concerned. And nothing in the 1975 law requires the syndic to man a telephone twenty-four hours a day.
When should you call 112?
When there is an emergency requiring the rescue services: fire, serious danger to people, or a situation for the CGDIS.
Waiting for the syndic to answer in a dangerous situation makes no sense.
And 113?
The Police grand-ducale uses 113 for police emergencies.
In a building, that can cover certain break-ins, criminal damage or safety situations that are not a matter for medical or fire rescue.
Does the syndic have to answer at night?
The law gives it powers to act in an emergency, but it does not create a general obligation to be available around the clock.
An on-call arrangement may exist because the syndic's contract or a technical contract provides for one.
So it is the co-ownership's actual contract that has to say which number to call for a stuck lift, a boiler, a leak or another breakdown outside normal hours.
What can the syndic do in an emergency?
It may, on its own initiative, have the works needed to safeguard the building carried out. (loi du 16 mai 1975, art. 21)
The regulation then provides that it informs the co-owners, immediately calls a meeting, and may request, in order to open the works, an advance capped at one third of the estimate, after the opinion of the works council where there is one. (RGD du 13 juin 1975, art. 27)
When should the insurer be called?
After taking the steps needed to limit the damage, and where the contract concerned requires or allows notification.
There is no single procedure for every co-ownership: the contracts have to be read.
Cover depends on the policies actually taken out by the co-ownership and by each co-owner. Where the situation is complex, it is better to review it with a specialist than to reason by analogy with another building.
What can the co-ownership prepare in advance?
A very short emergency page.
Danger to people: rescue services. Break-in or police emergency: 113. Lift: the maintenance company's number. Leak in a common part: the route the building has set. Ordinary request: the syndic through the normal channel.
This kind of information can be displayed and also made available by QR code or through an occupant portal.
A ticketing tool can then keep track of non-critical incidents. It is not an emergency service in disguise; it is a way of preventing everything from landing in the same place marked "urgent".