When people talk about bankruptcies, they often think of job losses and the difficulties employees will face. Sometimes, they also spare a thought for business owners whose projects have collapsed.
Those who are often overlooked are the company's customers, who are nevertheless the first victims of this long and gruelling process. And the consequences are all the more devastating when bankruptcy affects housing construction.
We saw this last week through the testimony of a buyer who purchased a property off-plan (VEFA): the road to bankruptcy can be long and the legal battle fierce.
For Emily, however, all of this remains abstract. The young woman has been kept completely in the dark since signing her deed of sale in late 2024.
Almost two years later, she faces a harsh reality: her apartment and the building itself – lot 11 of the development – are still nowhere near completion.
When she signed her contract in late 2024, Emily was convinced she had found her dream apartment. The location, size, and timing all seemed perfect.
"It was close to my mother’s home, in an area I know and really like. There was a garden and enough space for me to live comfortably", she explains.
She had no idea the situation would deteriorate so quickly.
Emily had committed to buying from a company called Moutfort Todenweg Sàrl, a subsidiary of the Capelli group. It did not take long for cracks to appear.
She says she was contacted two weeks after signing the deed to ask whether she wanted to change the original plans. Then, nothing.
"I never heard from them again after that conversation", she says.
Her bank transferred an initial €300,000, and Emily began making her monthly mortgage payments. But construction was not progressing.
A few weeks later, a worker alerted her to the problem.
"He told me, 'Be careful, there are a lot of problems over there. They've stopped building'", she recalls.
She soon hired a lawyer to try to get an explanation, without success. The developer remained silent.
So, she began looking for answers elsewhere, particularly on social media.
Eventually, through Reddit, she learned that she was not the only person going through this ordeal. She contacted buyers who had purchased homes in the neighbouring part of the same development, and the news was not good.
She learned that Capelli had filed for bankruptcy in France and that the subsidiary responsible for her project, Moutfort Todenweg Sàrl, could follow the same path.
The other owners were considering legal action but were hesitant. Their building – lot 16 of the development – had been partially constructed, and they had been promised for several months that work would resume.
Our colleagues from RTL Infos spoke to one of those affected, who explained that she would rather wait than force the company into bankruptcy – a process that could take months or even years.
This uncertainty does nothing to help Emily, who is currently the co-owner of a "hole in the ground". The fact that, almost two years later, she has still been unable to contact the other owners in her building is hardly reassuring.
"I was told that 50% of the apartments had been sold, but I haven't managed to find the owners", she says.
Neither the municipality nor the ministry seem willing to help her.
"I contacted the municipality, which made it clear that it wasn't their problem. The Ministry of Housing did the same. I feel completely abandoned", she says, standing in front of the 'West Valley' construction site.
She explains that she managed to confirm the sale of the other apartments in her part of the development through land registry information. But she has no names or addresses, and therefore nobody with whom she can coordinate efforts to put pressure on the developer.
The situation has put her life on hold:
I had to move back in with my mother. I can't afford rent on top of the mortgage I'm paying for an apartment that may never be built. And even if it is, there's no way of knowing when it will be finished… Will 56 square metres still be enough for me in five years? What if I want to have a child? I can no longer imagine my future or plan anything. My life has been on hold since I bought this apartment…
When our colleagues last met Emily, at the end of September 2026, she had joined the neighbouring owners' efforts to obtain answers from the Capelli group. Had construction proceeded as planned, she should have received her keys in less than three months.
Meanwhile, nothing has changed on the construction site for lot 11. Emily nevertheless continues to repay her mortgage, without knowing whether she will ever be able to move into her home in Moutfort.
She contacted her bank to try to reach an arrangement, but it did not go as she had hoped: "The first person I spoke to was very understanding, but it was radically different with the next one. She told me, 'Listen, you owe us money. You have to pay us back'."
There is no solution in sight for Emily, who is now represented by lawyer Me Olinger.
He was already representing nine couples who had bought properties in the same development. He agreed to speak to RTL Infos about the case, which looks set to drag on.
Moutfort Todenweg Sàrl is currently still active, despite the construction site having been abandoned for months.
"Everything is so slow, and the options available to buyers are really ineffective", Me Olinger comments.
His clients now have a choice between waiting and petitioning the court to declare the company bankrupt, in the hope of activating their completion guarantee and restarting construction.
But to do so, the site must have been "officially abandoned", the lawyer confirms. They would then have to take over the project, which is no small undertaking, as we saw last week in Mr Marx' case.
Until then, "it's a game of cat and mouse", says Me Olinger.
Even if the buyers reached an agreement tomorrow, the company would do everything possible to avoid bankruptcy. And the law of 7 August 2023 does not help matters, since it allows companies to seek protection through judicial reorganisation.
This provision can buy them up to 12 months, excluding procedural delays.
"They are at the developer's mercy", Me Olinger acknowledges.
He advises anyone in a similar situation to "waste no time” and take action.
Indeed, the conversations we have had while reporting on bankruptcies affecting off-plan purchases suggest that hesitation only increases buyers' losses. An abandoned construction site inevitably leads to additional costs.
By comparison, petitioning for bankruptcy can be reasonably affordable if the fees are shared: between €2,500 and €5,000, according to the lawyer.
Then there is the question of possible overbilling, which is not covered by the completion guarantee and is common in this kind of situation.
"In cases like these, developers often bill for more work than they have actually completed", Me Olinger tells us.
This can mean losses of tens of thousands of euros for buyers who already have to cover their mortgage, legal fees and, often, rent.
Proving such overbilling requires an independent expert assessment, which, according to the information RTL Infos have gathered, often costs an additional tens of thousands of euros – the amount depends on the size of the building and the scope of the assessment.
These expenses are generally borne by the buyers, who therefore face a "triple burden".
For Emily, who is already struggling to make ends meet, this whole process is unfortunately only beginning:
I do babysitting and tutoring to pay my lawyer's fees. I don't understand why nobody helps us. I did everything properly. I work here, I pay my taxes here, and I bought a home here, just as the government encourages us to do. I don't feel supported at all…
Contacted by us, Christophe Capelli, president of the property development company bearing his name, insists that he has no intention of abandoning the project.
"We will honour our commitments", he said during a telephone interview.
He adds that Moutfort Todenweg Sàrl will not go bankrupt – quite the opposite. He says he has "injected another €200,000" into this project over four months.
Nevertheless, he understands the buyers' doubts: "I understand them. Work on the site was halted for months."
According to him, these delays are due to the fact that he is working "almost alone" on several projects at once.
"And we had to find reliable companies to resume construction", he adds. If his account is to be believed, that has now been achieved for 'West Valley'.
Capelli tells us he has found an "excellent" engineering consultancy, which he says has enabled him to restart work on several fronts, particularly lots 16, an apartment building, and 8, a house:
We're proceeding in stages. Masonry work is underway on lot 8, and lot 7 will follow. We put up scaffolding on lot 16 in early August, redid the waterproofing, and now we need to start work on the façades. The joiners and painter have been over to prepare quotes.
RTL Infos have not been unable to confirm this information by the time this report was published. We do know, however, that nothing has changed on the site of the building in which Emily bought her apartment.
Christophe Capelli does not try to deny this. "Construction has remained at the foundation stage", he acknowledges.
Despite the remaining unsold properties, he insists that construction will not be abandoned.
The developer expects work to resume in "early 2027", a little more than two years after Emily signed her deed of sale. Construction should then take "at least 12 months", according to Capelli.
When RTL Infos raised the lack of communication with buyers in this building, lot 11, he showed himself surprised: "We communicate regularly with customers through a WhatsApp group."
That is true. However, the buyers in lot 11 are not included in that group, as our colleagues were able to confirm with a customer from lot 16.
"I will make sure to contact all the buyers in lot 11", he replies when confronted with this omission.
Meanwhile, Capelli insists that he has not been sitting idle. "We handed over a development in Limpertsberg in July", he tells us.
A house in Limpertsberg and part of his development in Bettange-sur-Mess should follow during October. The remainder should be completed in December, he says.
"Getting people into their homes takes time, but we're managing", he comments.
His words are particularly apt, since some buyers in the Bettange-sur-Mess development should have received their homes in October 2022.
Despite everything, he insists that every effort will be made to "finish properly" the projects he has undertaken in Luxembourg.
And when everything is finished?
"After that? After that, I'll take a few days off", he replies in a slightly lighter tone.
This article is the second in a series about bankruptcies affecting off-plan property purchases. The next report will be published at the end of next week on RTL Infos, RTL Today, and RTL.lu. If you are in a similar situation and would like to be contacted by our journalist, please email rtlinfos@rtl.lu.
