It's arrived. Five years after the first inkling of doom, the letter came from the syndic. Ravalement, refection de balcons, peinture etc etc: total bill -- 14,000 euros. Welcome to the joys of property ownership in Paris. The system works like this: everyone lives in blocks of flats and in addition to your own apartment, you get a share in the building as a whole. To avoid the inevitable rows that would ensue if you tried to manage the building independently, you consign the task to a syndic . These people charge a vast three-monthly sum for doing not very much as far as I can see. Every year there is an AGM, in which the syndic tries to browbeat you into new expenditure on the building's upkeep. In my case the building dates from around 1880, and much of the exterior wood- and iron-work is original -- ie delapidated. In addition experts have told the syndic that without urgent work, bits will start falling off and hitting people. Then we'll all be sued for millions, go to jail and be forced to say goodbye to our children. On top of that there is a legal requirement to have a ravalement or repointing every ten years. We haven't had one since 1980. That's the background. Now comes the crunch. The scaffolding goes up in September and I have till next Feb to find 14 thousand smackeroos. Contributions willingly accepted. I shall probably manage somehow, but I feel sorrier for some of our elderly neighbours. Like a lot of older buildings, ours contains several flats inhabited by pensioners who have been there since the war of before. They haven't a hope of finding the money.