Renouncing Use of Common Parts and the Duty to Pay

Renouncing the use of a common part does not release an owner from the duty to contribute to its expenses. Article 1118 of the Italian Civil Code establishes this: each owner's right over common assets is proportional to the value of their unit and remains tied to ownership, not to actual use. An owner cannot escape contribution either by waiving the right or by changing the intended use of their unit. There is only one meaningful exception, detachment from a central heating or air conditioning system, and it comes with strict conditions. Confusing use with ownership almost always leads to a request that cannot be granted.

What Article 1118 actually says

The rule ties each owner's right over common parts to the value of their unit, unless otherwise agreed. Its second paragraph clarifies that the owner cannot renounce the right over common parts. The third paragraph adds that the owner cannot avoid the duty to contribute to the expenses for preserving common parts, not even by changing the intended use of the unit, except as provided by special laws. The message is clear: co-ownership of the common parts is a structural element of apartment ownership, not a service one can unsubscribe from.

Why actual use does not matter for contribution

Contribution to preservation expenses stems from holding the right, not from whether the owner uses the asset. The top-floor owner who never takes the stairs still contributes to their ordinary maintenance under Articles 1123 and 1124; the ground-floor owner who never uses the lift still contributes to preserving the equipment. The reason is that preservation keeps intact the value of the whole building, of which every unit is a part. Pure enjoyment expenses are different: Article 1123 splits them in proportion to use when a service is meant to serve owners to differing degrees.

Preservation versus enjoyment: the distinction that changes the bill

The practical point is to separate expenses for preserving the asset from expenses for enjoying it. The former follow ownership and admit no waiver. The latter, when the asset serves owners differently, may be split according to use. For the lift, for example, case law distinguishes maintenance and reconstruction expenses, split partly by thousandths (millesimi) and partly by floor height under Article 1124, from operating expenses, which are more closely tied to use. Someone who gives up using the lift is not freed from preservation costs but does affect the logic of pure operating costs according to the rules and the owners' meeting resolutions.

The one real exception: detachment from the central system

Article 1118, final paragraph, lets an owner detach from the central heating or air conditioning system on two conditions: that the detachment causes no significant operating imbalances and no added expense for the other owners. Even with a lawful detachment, however, the owner remains bound to contribute to the extraordinary maintenance of the system and to its preservation and compliance upgrades. It is therefore not a full release but a limited relief confined to the voluntary consumption share, to be proven with a technical report demonstrating the absence of imbalances.

• The detachment must not create thermal or operating imbalances in the remaining system.
• It must not produce added expense for the other owners.
• It must be documented with a technical report certifying the two conditions.
• The detached owner still pays extraordinary maintenance, preservation and compliance upgrades of the system.
• Involuntary consumption remains due, that is the dispersion from risers crossing the unit.

Cases that look like renunciation but are not

An owner may ask not to pay for the concierge because they have an independent entrance, or the garden expenses because they never use it, or the lighting of a staircase they do not use. In all these cases the request collides with the principle of Article 1118: the expense for preserving the common asset remains due. An exemption can arise only from a different contractual agreement, that is a deed or a contractual regulation accepted by everyone, or from the nature of a partial condominium when an asset objectively serves only a group of units. A majority resolution alone cannot exempt an owner from an expense the law assigns them.

How to handle contribution and detachments correctly

For the manager, the operating rule is to keep preservation costs separate from enjoyment costs from the moment of recording, and to document every special situation: an authorized detachment with a technical report, a table for differentiated use, a contractual clause derogating from the legal criteria. This way the statement clearly shows why a given unit pays a given share and withstands challenges. Traceability of the descriptions and applied tables is what makes an allocation defensible when non-waivable and use-based expenses coexist.

With management software such as AmministraPro you can assign the correct allocation criterion to each expense, manage separate tables for preservation and enjoyment, and record detachments with their documentation, so that every share is justified in the statement. You can find the tools on the features page and the plans in the pricing section.