How to Prepare a Property Manager Quote for a New Building

When a condominium changes management or is set up for the first time, choosing the new professional almost always comes down to comparing several economic proposals. A property manager quote is not a simple price list: it is the document that lets the assembly understand precisely what is included in the fee and what will be billed separately. A poorly written quote leads to disputes in the first months of the mandate, when activities the owners believed were included turn out to be treated as extras by the manager. Building the quote carefully, following the line items that practice and case law have consolidated over time, is the first step toward a relationship built on trust.

The base fee and what it should cover

The base fee usually covers ordinary management for the administrative year: convening and running the ordinary assembly, keeping the mandatory registers, managing the condominium bank account, collecting instalments, paying recurring suppliers, drafting the annual financial statement and handling day to day communication with owners. It is good practice to state explicitly how many ordinary assemblies are included in the price, because any extra meetings requested by owners or by the manager for urgent matters may fall under a separate line item.

Extraordinary activities to quote separately

Alongside the base fee, the quote should list precisely the activities that carry an additional charge: managing extraordinary works and the related paperwork with contractors and site supervisors, judicial or out of court disputes, land registry filings, insurance claims handling, utility transfers, drafting minutes for additional extraordinary assemblies, and debt recovery from owners in arrears. For each item it helps to state the calculation method, whether a fixed fee, a percentage of the works, or an hourly rate, so there is no ambiguity once the situation actually arises.

Transparency required by article 1129 of the civil code

Article 1129 of the Italian civil code requires the property manager, upon accepting appointment and at every renewal, to itemise in detail, under penalty of the appointment being void, the amount owed as compensation for the work performed. This means a generic quote with one undifferentiated figure is not just poor commercial practice: it risks invalidating the appointment resolution itself. The quote should therefore already anticipate the structure that will later appear in the letter of acceptance, clearly separating the ordinary fee from the extraordinary services.

Out of pocket expenses and administrative running costs

An often overlooked chapter concerns out of pocket expenses: postage for registered letters and meeting notices, stamps on minutes and registers, any bank charges on the condominium account, printing and mailing costs for financial statements. Some firms include these in the base fee up to an annual threshold, others reimburse them against receipts. Either way it must be written into the quote, because it is precisely these small recurring items that generate the most frequent disputes when the accounts are reviewed.

Comparing several quotes at the assembly

When the assembly has to choose among several candidates, comparison only makes sense if the quotes are structured around the same line items. A prudent manager presenting a proposal can make the owners' task easier by offering a clear layout that allows them to compare the base fee, the number of assemblies included, the hourly rate for extras and the reporting method. This approach distinguishes an organised professional from one who simply offers the lowest figure without specifying what is left out.

• Annual base fee and included activities
• Number of ordinary assemblies included in the price
• Rate schedule for extraordinary activities
• Reimbursement method for out of pocket expenses
• Duration of the appointment and renewal or termination terms

Accepting the appointment after the resolution

Once the assembly has resolved to appoint the manager on the basis of the quote, the manager must formalise acceptance by restating the same economic terms already discussed, consistent with article 1129. Any discrepancy between what was presented in the quote and what later appears in the letter of acceptance can become grounds for dispute by dissenting owners, so documentary consistency is essential from the very first economic proposal.

A clear quote is not a constraint on the manager, it is the foundation on which trust with the condominium is built.

Why transparency also benefits the manager

A detailed quote also protects the person who drafts it: it reduces the risk of having to perform extra activities without compensation, because every additional service has already been classified and priced in advance. It also reduces disputes when the annual financial statement is approved, because owners recognise in the accounts the same items they approved at the time of appointment. Managers who run several buildings with digital tools such as AmministraPro find a concrete advantage at this stage: being able to pull up, for each property, the history of fee items and extraordinary activities performed makes it easier to prepare consistent quotes and aligned financial statements. Readers who want to explore the tools available for managing fees and accounting can check the features page, while plan details and costs are gathered in the pricing section.