Accounting
What are accessory charges in a condominium
Accessory charges, also known as condominium expenses or service charges in a lease, are the costs that a tenant renting a property must reimburse to the landlord for services and utilities related to running the building. They should not be confused with rent: they are additional amounts, usually advanced by the landlord through the condominium instalments and then billed back to the tenant according to the split set by law. Understanding which items fall under the tenant's accessory charges, and which remain the landlord's responsibility, avoids frequent disputes at the time of the annual statement and helps property managers, owners and tenants handle the relationship more clearly.
The basic distinction: ordinary and extraordinary expenses
The guiding criterion for understanding who pays what is set out in article 1576 of the Italian civil code and confirmed by established practice: small maintenance and ordinary management expenses are charged to the tenant, while extraordinary maintenance expenses remain the owner's responsibility. For rented properties, the table attached to the ministerial decree accompanying agreed rent contracts follows this same distinction, listing the ordinary and extraordinary items in detail.
In practice, everything needed to keep common services running day to day, such as cleaning, electricity for shared areas, small repairs and consumable materials, counts as an accessory charge for the tenant. Anything that structurally renews or replaces a system or part of the building, such as redoing the facade, replacing the lift or redoing the roof, remains the owner's responsibility, unless the parties agree otherwise in writing.
Typical items included in the tenant's accessory charges
The most common items that make up the accessory charges billed to the tenant are the following.
- Cleaning of stairs and common areas
- Electricity for lighting stairwells, entrance halls and courtyards
- Water for common use and for condominium systems
- Operation and small ordinary maintenance of the lift
- Central heating, for the share related to management, fuel and ordinary maintenance
- Concierge service, where present
- Ordinary maintenance of common green areas
- Small repairs to plumbing, electrical and intercom systems
What remains the landlord's responsibility
Extraordinary expenses and those concerning the structural preservation of the building remain the landlord's responsibility: redoing facades and roofs, fully replacing systems such as the lift, the central boiler or the intercom, work on structural parts, and projects approved by the assembly for regulatory compliance or system upgrades. The property manager's fees for extraordinary management, and any legal costs for disputes not related to ordinary management, also generally remain with the landlord.
The classification does not depend on the cost of the work but on its nature: an expensive intervention that is still ordinary maintenance, such as replacing a heating pump that failed due to wear, can still fall under the tenant's accessory charges, while a cheap but structural intervention remains the landlord's responsibility.
How the split and the statement work
The property manager splits expenses among the unit owners based on their ownership shares and the tables set out under articles 1123 and following of the civil code, regardless of whether a unit is occupied by the owner or rented to a tenant. It is then the landlord who must separate, within their own condominium statement, which items count as accessory charges to be billed back to the tenant, according to the lease agreement and the applicable rules.
For this reason, condominium management software that keeps ordinary and extraordinary accounting separate, and that can extract expense items per unit, makes life much easier for both the property manager and the landlord. AmministraPro, for example, generates the statement for each individual unit with ordinary and extraordinary items detailed separately, making it straightforward to calculate the accessory charges to communicate to the tenant and reducing the risk of errors and disputes.
Frequently asked questions
Must accessory charges be paid even if the tenant never used some of the common services?
Yes, ordinary expenses are split among tenants according to the criteria set by the lease and the ownership tables, not according to the tenant's actual use of a given service. Concierge service or stairwell lighting, for example, remain due even if the tenant claims not to have used them, because availability of the service, not actual use, is what the split is based on.
Must the landlord provide supporting documents for the expenses to the tenant?
Yes, the landlord must make available to the tenant, upon request, the condominium statement and the documentation for the expenses billed as accessory charges, so the tenant can verify that what is being requested matches the items actually incurred by the building. It is good practice to attach a copy of the statement approved by the assembly.
How is the amount of accessory charges determined if it is not specified in the lease?
If the lease does not specify an amount, accessory charges are settled based on the annual condominium statement, applying the unit's ownership share to the ordinary expenses incurred by the building for the reference year. It is however common practice to set a monthly or annual advance payment, subject to final settlement at year end.
Do accessory charges fall under the flat tax on rental income?
No, accessory charges reimbursed by the tenant to the landlord for condominium expenses do not constitute taxable income for the landlord, so they are not included in the calculation base of the flat tax on rentals or of personal income tax on rent, since they represent a simple reimbursement of costs incurred rather than payment for the enjoyment of the property.
Does condominium management software help calculate accessory charges?
Yes, software that automatically separates ordinary from extraordinary expenses in the statement and produces a per unit account extract lets a landlord quickly identify which items to communicate to the tenant as accessory charges. AmministraPro generates this detail directly from the statement approved by the assembly, without additional manual calculations.
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