The bill is high, but it could have been even higher.
Businessman Stéphane Courbit and two of his companies were sentenced this Friday by the Albertville Criminal Court to fines totaling 4.5 million euros, for the illegal construction of high-end chalets in Courchevel (Savoy).
All the defendants were convicted of carrying out work not authorized by a building permit, breaching the provisions of the local town planning plan and continuing work despite an order ordering its interruption.
Stéphane Courbit, the company Lov Group Invest represented by the businessman and the company SNC Solières represented by Lov Group Invest, were all three fined 1.5 million euros, including 500,000 suspended for Stéphane Courbit and the company SAS Lov Group Invest.
The construction company Spie Batignolles Sud Est was fined 200,000 euros, with the court accusing it of having “accepted the carrying out of work on the basis of an unissued building permit”, clarified the president of the court Michelle Raffin when delivering the judgment.
The president of the court observed that the amounts of the fines imposed were “far below the maximum amounts provided for by law”, given the construction site.
Work started without waiting for the right building permit
At the heart of the debate, three chalets with a floor space of 6,198 m2 in an upscale area of the famous ski resort of the Alps, with a construction site launched without a permit and regularized subsequently.
In 2019, Stéphane Courbit, on behalf of Lov Group Invest and via Solières, held two building permits for a 2,976 m2 residential chalet in Jardin Alpin, the most expensive district of Courchevel - around 20,000 euros per m2 according to local real estate agencies.
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Wishing to transform this project into a set of three chalets, under the less restrictive qualification of hotel accommodation, with a floor area of 6,198 m2, the company SNC Solières had submitted a new application for a building permit.
But, without waiting for this permit to be issued, the work began in July 2020. In October, the town hall issued an order refusing a building permit, then an order interrupting the work, but the construction site continued.
Without, moreover, respecting the property limits imposed by the local town planning plan.
The Savoie departmental council, led by Hervé Gaymard (LR), and the mayor of Courchevel Jean-Yves Pachod (without label) had on this point allowed a posteriori regularization of the work.
The mayor of Courchevel also issued, retrospectively in May 2021, a special “hotel accommodation” building permit.
The criminal court was referred to the court following a direct summons from a local resident and a local citizens' association, after the Albertville public prosecutor's office dismissed the matter without further action for regularization of the situation a posteriori.