Fitting air conditioning: where the outdoor unit goes and what permission you need

The heatwave arrives and three new units appear hanging off the façade. It is one of the most repeated summer conflicts, and almost always down to not knowing the rules.

The starting point: the façade is not yours

Your flat is yours; the façade is a common element, even the part your balcony opens onto. Hanging an outdoor unit there alters a common element, and that requires authorisation from the meeting. "It doesn't bother anyone" is not enough.

So can they forbid it?

In practice most communities authorise it, because banning it outright in a building with no pre-installation means condemning residents to a summer at 35 degrees. The usual and sensible thing is to agree a common rule: where units go (an inner courtyard rather than the main façade), at what height, with what finish, and on what terms for drainage and noise.

That rule, approved at the meeting and recorded in the minutes, saves twenty future arguments.

What the community can legitimately require

• That the condensation water does not drip onto a neighbour or the public street. It is the number one complaint and the fix is cheap: a piped drain.
• That the unit's noise complies with the municipal ordinance, especially at night.
• That the installation does not damage the façade and that, if you ever remove it, you make good whatever you touched.
• In listed buildings or those with a protected façade, that it is not visible from the street. There the council has more say than the community.

"But I already fitted mine"

It happens constantly. If nobody says anything for years the community may end up tolerating it in practice, but that is not an acquired right: the meeting can agree a rule and ask you to comply. If yours is already up, the smart move is to take it to the meeting and regularise it before somebody turns it into a fight.

The practical advice

If your building is going to have air conditioning sooner or later — and it is — better one rule thought through calmly than fifteen improvised decisions every July.