Common mistakes of a new condominium manager

The non dedicated bank account

Article 1129, paragraph ten, of the Italian Civil Code requires the manager to route sums received from unit owners or third parties, for any reason, through a specific bank or postal account held in the condominium's name. A new manager who, out of habit or because the account was not opened in time, collects fees on a personal account or on another building's account commits a violation that owners can raise in assembly to seek judicial removal, expressly listed by that same article among serious irregularities.

The most insidious mistake is mixing the funds of several managed buildings on the same account: without separate traceability for each one it becomes impossible to prove which property each euro received or paid belongs to, with the concrete risk of having to cover an overdraft generated by one building with another building's money.

Bookkeeping done by hand or on generic spreadsheets

A spreadsheet does not automatically separate the accrual period, does not link each expense to the correct ownership share table, and does not generate on its own the accounting register that article 1130, paragraph one, number 7, of the Civil Code makes mandatory alongside the owner registry and the meeting minutes register.

With manual bookkeeping, the annual financial statement, which under article 1130 bis must include an accounting register, a financial summary and an explanatory note, is often assembled hastily right before the assembly, with the risk of addition or allocation errors that undermine its approval.

Management software that automatically links each invoice to the ownership shares and generates the statement in the three required documents drastically reduces closing time and the margin for error, especially when the new manager oversees several buildings with different share tables.

Untracked communications with owners and suppliers

Meeting notices sent only through informal messages, payment reminders delivered verbally, urgent maintenance requests handled on personal chats: these are common practices in first mandates, but they leave the manager without proof in case of dispute. The assembly notice in particular must follow the form and deadlines set by article 66 of the implementing provisions of the Civil Code, and an irregular notice can lead to the resolutions being challenged and voided.

Handling owners' data in communications also falls under GDPR: a new manager who shares lists of names or arrears situations on unmonitored groups risks violating the principles of data minimization and personal data security.

Keeping a timestamped record of every communication, with delivery confirmation, protects both the manager and the owners and makes compliance with legal deadlines verifiable in case of a dispute.

A neglected owner registry

Article 1130, paragraph one, number 6, of the Civil Code requires keeping the owner registry updated with each unit owner's personal and land registry data, information on real and personal rights of enjoyment, and any change to them. A new manager who focuses only on bookkeeping and neglects this registry later struggles to identify who is liable for payment in the event of a sale or inheritance, one of the most frequent mistakes in the first months of a mandate.

Choosing the right tools from the very first building

Most of these mistakes stem not from negligence but from the absence of a system that enforces the correct practices by habit, not by sheer memory: a dedicated account for each building, bookkeeping linked to ownership shares, mandatory registers always kept up to date, communications with dated tracking. AmministraPro was built to support managers, even those handling their first buildings, through these obligations, with dedicated features for financial statements, registers and tracked communications listed on the features page and on the pricing page to evaluate the plan best suited to the number of buildings managed.

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