Urgent Expenses Advanced by an Owner: The Refund

An owner who on their own initiative incurs an expense on common parts is entitled to reimbursement only if the expense was urgent. Article 1134 of the Italian Civil Code establishes this: whoever has taken over management of the common parts without authorization from the manager or the owners' meeting cannot claim reimbursement, unless it is an urgent expense. Urgency is therefore the decisive condition, and the burden of proving it falls on whoever advanced the money. Without proven urgency, the expense remains borne by the owner who incurred it.

The rule of individual-initiative management

Managing the common parts belongs to the manager and the owners' meeting, not to the single owner. If an owner acts on their own initiative, ordering work or paying for a repair without prior authorization, they act outside the ordinary management scheme. Article 1134 governs precisely this situation, establishing that as a rule the individual has no right to reimbursement of what they spent. The reason is to protect the community from individual, unshared initiatives that bypass the assembly method and could impose on the others costs that were not resolved upon.

The exception: the urgent expense

The only exception to the rule is the urgent expense. Urgency exists when the work, to avoid harm to oneself, to others or to the common asset, must be carried out without delay and without the possibility of promptly warning the manager or the other owners. It is not enough that the work is necessary: many necessary expenses are not urgent, because they can await the ordinary times of notice and resolution. Urgency instead implies the impossibility of awaiting those times, that is a situation requiring immediate action.

Necessity and urgency are not the same thing

The distinction between a necessary expense and an urgent expense is the heart of the rule and the most frequent cause of rejections in court. An expense is necessary when it serves to preserve or operate the common asset; it is urgent when it cannot be postponed without prejudice. Redoing a deteriorated roof is necessary, but becomes urgent only if an ongoing leak is damaging the apartments and there is no time to convene the meeting. The owner who advances a merely necessary but not urgent expense has no right to reimbursement, because they should have followed the ordinary procedure.

The burden of proof on the owner

Whoever seeks reimbursement must prove urgency, not just necessity. It is necessary to demonstrate the concrete circumstances that required immediate intervention and the impossibility of warning the manager in time. Useful documentation includes elements such as these.

• Photographs or reports attesting the ongoing damage and its progression.
• Any reports or requests that went without a prompt response.
• The technical documentation describing the danger and the immediacy of the intervention.
• The invoices and payments linking the expense to the urgent work carried out.
• The correspondence showing the attempt to contact the manager or the impossibility of doing so.

What happens if urgency is missing

If the owner cannot prove urgency, they have no right to reimbursement and the expense remains borne by them. Case law is strict on this point: a non-urgent expense incurred without authorization amounts to an undue individual management act, and the owner cannot recover the outlay even by invoking unjust enrichment. The practical message is clear: whoever wants to be sure of reimbursement should, where possible, first obtain authorization from the manager or the meeting, and reserve autonomous initiative for cases of genuine, documentable urgency only.

How to prevent conflicts over reimbursement

The best way to avoid disputes is transparency and timely communication. A fast channel between owners and manager allows problems to be reported at once, urgency to be assessed and non-deferrable interventions to be authorized before the individual acts alone. When the urgent intervention is unavoidable, keeping photographs, communications and technical documents from the very first moment puts the owner in a position to prove urgency and obtain reimbursement. Traceability of reports and responses is often what makes the difference in court.

With management software such as AmministraPro owners and manager have a tracked reporting channel, with a history of requests, responses and attached documents, useful for assessing urgency and correctly handling any reimbursements. Learn more on the features page and compare the plans in the pricing section.