Extraordinary Expenses: Landlord or Tenant Pays?

In a lease, extraordinary condominium expenses stay with the owner, while the tenant pays only accessory charges, that is, the ordinary operating costs of the common services he enjoys. The rule flows from Article 9 of Law 392 of 1978 and from the law of the lease, which places extraordinary maintenance and preservation of the structure on the landlord. The practical point is to distinguish precisely what is ordinary from what is extraordinary.

The allocation principle

The tenant uses the property and the common services, so he contributes to the costs tied to this daily use: cleaning, electricity for the common parts, operation of the lift, heating, minor maintenance. The owner, instead, bears the costs relating to preserving and improving the asset, independent of immediate enjoyment. The logic is clear: whoever enjoys pays for operation, whoever owns pays for capital.

The Civil Code, in Articles 1576 and 1609, confirms that the landlord is responsible for the maintenance needed to keep the property fit for use, while the tenant bears the minor repairs arising from use. This scheme is reflected in the condominium expenses of the leased unit.

What the owner pays

Typically borne by the landlord are the extraordinary expenses approved by the meeting for works on the structure and the common systems. Some recurring examples:

• Redoing the facade or the roof
• Replacing the lift or completely rebuilding the installation
• Replacing the central boiler
• Structural reinforcement and compliance works
• Installing new systems and improvements approved by the meeting

These items do not fall within the tenant's accessory charges and cannot be charged to him, save for a specific and different agreement shifting part of the cost onto him, which is in any case delicate and to be weighed carefully.

What the tenant pays

The tenant bears the ordinary operating costs tied to the service: ordinary maintenance of the lift, cleaning, the supply of water and electricity for the common parts, heating, minor upkeep of the green areas. These are amounts the owner advances to the condominium and then claims back from the tenant as accessory charges. The distinction between ordinary and extraordinary is therefore decisive to understand who, internally, bears each item.

Doubtful cases and how to solve them

Many disputes arise over borderline items. A lift repair may be ordinary maintenance or an extraordinary intervention depending on its nature and scale. A partial redoing of a common part may be read differently. The guiding criterion is the nature of the intervention: if it serves to preserve or renew the asset it is extraordinary and stays with the owner; if it serves to keep it working in daily use it is ordinary and falls on the tenant. In case of uncertainty, reading the meeting minutes and the spending resolution helps to classify the work.

The role of the condominium statement

To split correctly you need accounting that clearly separates ordinary from extraordinary expenses within each unit's allocation. A statement that mixes the two categories makes it hard to understand what to charge the tenant and what to keep with the owner. The correct classification of expenses is the basis of every reimbursement and every adjustment without disputes.

Separating ordinary and extraordinary in accounting

Orderly management distinguishes the items from the moment of recording, so the per-unit allocation already shows the tenant's part and the owner's part. With a platform like AmministraPro the manager classifies expenses, produces allocations that separate ordinary and extraordinary and gives the owner the detail ready to reimburse the tenant's accessory charges: the features are on /funzioni and the plans on /prezzi.