Practical guide
Managing elevator and staircase costs together
In many buildings, staircases and the elevator share the same accounting fate: they are common property served by specific allocation criteria, different from those applied to other common parts. Article 1124 of the Italian Civil Code sets out a mixed criterion that accounts for both ownership shares and floor height, recognizing that owners living higher up make greater use of these facilities. Understanding how this criterion applies, which tables are needed, and how ordinary and extraordinary maintenance differ avoids disputes at assembly meetings and in financial statements. This guide explains the legal criteria, how to build the dedicated allocation tables, and how to automate the calculations with a management platform such as AmministraPro.
The Article 1124 criterion
Article 1124 of the Italian Civil Code expressly governs expenses for the maintenance and replacement of staircases and, by well established case law, elevator systems. The criterion is not the general ownership table but a mixed one: half of the expense is split according to the value of each unit, and the other half according to the height of each floor from ground level. This means an owner on the top floor contributes more than an owner on the ground floor, because they benefit more from using the stairs and the elevator.
Case law has clarified that this criterion applies to both ordinary and extraordinary maintenance and to full replacement of the system, unless the condominium bylaws have contractual nature and set a different criterion accepted unanimously by all owners. For this reason it is essential to always check the bylaws before applying the legal criterion automatically.
The dedicated allocation tables
Correctly applying Article 1124 requires a specific allocation table for stairs and elevator, distinct from the general ownership table. This table combines two elements.
In practice you need: the ownership share of each unit, the height of the floor where each unit is located relative to street level, and the resulting coefficient calculated according to the formula set out in the article. Ground floor units or premises that do not use the elevator, such as garages with independent access, can be excluded from the height based share, but generally remain subject to the ownership based share if they still use the stairs.
Building this table by hand, sheet by sheet, is the main source of errors in financial statements: a wrong coefficient carries forward for years until someone challenges it at an assembly meeting.
Ordinary and extraordinary maintenance: the practical difference
For staircases, the distinction between ordinary maintenance, cleaning, small step repairs, periodic painting, and extraordinary maintenance, structural rebuilding, replacing finishes, affects the assembly majority required, but the allocation criterion remains the one set out in Article 1124.
For the elevator, ordinary maintenance includes the periodic maintenance contracts required by law and the inspections mandated by sector regulations, while extraordinary maintenance covers work such as replacing the cabin, the winch, or bringing the system up to current regulatory standards. Here too the mixed criterion of Article 1124 applies to both types of expense, unless the bylaws provide otherwise.
- Ordinary staircase maintenance: cleaning, small repairs, lighting
- Extraordinary staircase maintenance: step rebuilding, railings, plastering
- Ordinary elevator maintenance: periodic contracts, mandatory inspections
- Extraordinary elevator maintenance: component replacement, regulatory upgrades
Automating the calculation and reducing disputes
A property manager handling two separate tables by hand, general ownership and stairs or elevator, risks transcription errors and delayed statements, especially in buildings with multiple staircases served by the same elevator or several separate structures. A management platform such as AmministraPro allows the manager to load the dedicated allocation table for stairs and elevator, automatically apply the mixed Article 1124 criterion to expenses of this kind, and produce a consistent statement for each owner, with traceable calculations that reduce disputes at assembly meetings.
Automating the calculation does not replace checking the condominium bylaws, which the manager must still review before applying the legal criterion: if the bylaws set a different criterion accepted unanimously, that criterion prevails.
Frequently asked questions
Who pays for elevator costs if they live on the ground floor?
A ground floor owner still contributes to the share calculated on ownership value, but not to the share calculated on floor height, which is by definition zero at street level. In practice they pay a reduced share compared to owners on higher floors, but they are not fully exempt unless the bylaws state otherwise or the unit has no access to the elevator.
Do ground floor commercial units have to pay for the elevator?
If a commercial unit has no access to the elevator and derives no benefit from it, it can be excluded from the allocation under Article 1123, third paragraph, of the Civil Code, which exempts owners who do not use a common facility. The assessment must be made case by case based on actual benefit, not simply on being located on the ground floor.
Does the Article 1124 criterion also apply to a full elevator replacement?
Yes, prevailing case law extends the mixed Article 1124 criterion to the rebuilding or full replacement of the system as well, treating it like other extraordinary staircase maintenance expenses, unless the contractual bylaws provide otherwise with the agreement of all owners.
How do you build the allocation table for stairs and elevator?
You need to combine each unit's general ownership share with the height of its floor relative to street level, applying the formula that splits the expense equally between the two criteria. A management platform such as AmministraPro lets you load this data once and automatically apply the calculation to every new expense in this category, avoiding manual recalculation each time.
What happens if the condominium bylaws set a different criterion than the legal one?
If the condominium bylaws have contractual nature, meaning they were accepted by all owners originally or approved unanimously at a later date, and they set an allocation criterion different from Article 1124, that criterion prevails over the legal one. The property manager must always check the bylaws before applying the criterion set out in the Civil Code.
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