Charging personal expenses to a single condominium owner

Charging personal expenses to a single condominium owner is one of the topics that generate the most tension in owners' meetings. The basic rule is that common expenses are shared according to criteria set by law, and the meeting cannot freely decide to load a cost onto one owner alone. There are, however, situations in which an expense arises from the behaviour or the consumption of a single person, and in those cases individual attribution is legitimate. Telling the two levels apart helps to avoid challengeable resolutions and to keep accounts that stand up to scrutiny.

The general rule: common expenses are shared by law

Article 1123 of the Italian Civil Code sets out how the expenses needed for the preservation and enjoyment of the common parts are divided. Allocation is based on the thousandth (millesimal) shares of ownership, or in proportion to use when the common parts serve owners to a different extent, or limited to the group that benefits from them in the case of a partial condominium. None of these criteria includes the notion of a personal expense decided by majority vote.

Why the meeting cannot charge personal expenses at will

Among its powers, the owners' meeting approves the budget, the financial statement and the related allocation, under article 1135 of the Civil Code. This power, however, is not discretionary: it must be exercised in compliance with the legal allocation criteria. When the meeting attributes to a single owner, as if it were a condominium charge, an expense that has nothing common about it, it exercises a power that the law does not grant. Case law consistently treats as void the resolution that imposes personal charges without a basis, because it harms the owner's right to the integrity of his own assets.

Common versus individual expenses: how to tell them apart

The dividing line is the origin of the expense. If the cost concerns a common asset or service, it must be shared among everyone under art. 1123. If, on the other hand, the cost arises from a fact attributable to a single owner, or measures a purely individual consumption, then it is correct that it falls on whoever generated it. The accounts must keep these two worlds separate, so that the financial statement clearly shows what is common and what is personal. Confusion between the two levels is one of the most frequent causes of dispute over the statement, because an owner charged with an item that is not due has good grounds to object to the allocation and, in some cases, to the entire approval.

The cases where an individual charge is legitimate

There are situations in which the law itself, or the nature of the expense, justifies attribution to the individual. In these cases the administrator does not decide arbitrarily, but applies a rule.

• Updating the condominium register: if the owner does not provide the required data, after thirty days the administrator obtains it and charges the cost to the person responsible.
• Damage to the common parts caused by a single owner: repairing the damage caused remains the responsibility of whoever caused it.
• Measured individual consumption, such as water or heat with metering, for the voluntary draw share.
• Costs of recovering the debt from an owner in arrears, including legal costs incurred to collect the unpaid amount.
• Works made necessary by the improper use of a common asset by an owner.

The role of the financial statement and documentation

A personal charge only holds up if it is traceable. The accounting register must show the item, the description and the link to the fact that justifies it: the unanswered request for data, the report of the damage, the meter reading, the formal notice of default. Without this documentation the charge becomes challengeable and, if entered in the general allocation as a common item, it risks dragging the entire statement into dispute.

How to avoid challengeable resolutions

The safest way not to fall into voidness is not to force the meeting's hand. When an expense is personal in nature, it must be attributed directly to the owner concerned with the relevant description, not approved as a common cost to be dumped onto one person. When, on the other hand, the expense is common, it must be shared under art. 1123 without discretionary exceptions. Documentary clarity, more than the majority gathered in the meeting, is what makes a charge defensible before a judge.

Managing individual charges with management software

Condominium management software lets you keep common items separate from individual items from the moment of recording, so that each personal charge stays tied to the owner and to its description. At allocation time the system applies the millesimal criteria to common expenses and attributes individual items only to whoever generated them, reducing the risk of errors and disputes.

AmministraPro lets you distinguish common expenses from charges to a single owner, with traced descriptions and documentation attached to support the financial statement. You can see how it works on the features page or compare the plans in the pricing section.