Accounting for Urgent Expenses: the Manager's Duties

A manager who has incurred urgent expenses without a resolution must account for them to the owners. The duty stems from two sources: Article 1135 of the Italian Civil Code, which requires reporting urgent works to the first meeting, and the general duty to account for management, which takes shape in the annual statement governed by Article 1130-bis. Accounting is not optional: it is the transparency condition that consolidates the legitimacy of the expense and protects the manager.

Two distinct moments of accounting

The urgent expense must be accounted for on two levels. The first is immediate: the manager reports on the intervention at the first available meeting, explaining the urgency and the costs incurred. The second is periodic: the expense flows into the annual statement, alongside every other management item, where the owners find it documented. The two moments do not replace each other: the prompt report does not remove the duty to enter the expense in the final statement, and vice versa.

The report to the first meeting

Reporting to the first meeting means placing the matter on the agenda of the first meeting following the intervention, not waiting for the year-end ordinary meeting if it is far off. The report must be clear and complete:

• Description of the problem and reason for urgency
• Work carried out and contractor engaged
• Total amount and supporting documents
• Proposed allocation criterion among the owners
• Any advances made by the manager

When the intervention exceeded ordinary management, the report is accompanied by the ratification proposal, by which the meeting adopts the expense and resolves on its financing.

The annual statement and its documents

Article 1130-bis provides that the condominium statement contain the accounting register, the financial summary, and a concise explanatory note on the management. Urgent expenses take their place in these documents like any other item: recorded in the accounts, shown in the summary, and, if significant, explained in the note. The explanatory note is the natural place to set out non-ordinary interventions, justify urgency, and clarify the allocation criteria adopted.

Why accounting protects the manager

The duty to report falls within the general duty to account for management and must not be confused with the need to ratify an act exceeding the mandate. In practice, a manager who acted on a genuinely urgent expense keeps the right to reimbursement even without ratification, but only if they accounted for it promptly and transparently. Documented, communicated management is the best defense against the accusation of having spent arbitrarily.

Mistakes that undermine transparency

Some practices weaken the manager's position even when the expense was lawful. Delaying the report for months, presenting amounts without supporting documents, mixing the urgent expense with other items without distinguishing it, omitting the allocation criterion: these behaviors feed suspicion and disputes. Clarity of presentation counts as much as the substantive correctness of the expense.

Owners' right to consult the documents

Owners have the right to inspect and take copies of the accounting documentation. Keeping the supporting documents of urgent expenses in order, so they are easy to find and linked to their entry, eases the exercise of this right and reduces tension. A disorderly archive breeds distrust; a consultable archive breeds trust.

Accounting in an orderly way with a platform

Linking each urgent expense to its supporting document, its report to the meeting, and its accounting entry is easier with a dedicated tool. With AmministraPro the manager archives documents, produces the statement compliant with Article 1130-bis, highlights urgent interventions in the explanatory note, and makes the supporting documents available to owners: the features are on /funzioni, the plans for firms on /prezzi.