Who pays the arrears when the apartment is sold

The buyer's joint liability for two years

The rule is clear: whoever buys a unit is jointly liable with the seller for condominium contributions relating to the year current at the time of purchase and the preceding one. This is a joint liability limited in time, designed to balance the protection of the condominium with the position of the incoming owner who did not contribute to creating the debt.

In practice, if at the time of the sale there are unpaid contributions referring to that time span, the manager can claim them from both the old and the new owner, choosing the more solvent debtor. The buyer who pays may then seek reimbursement from the seller for the seller's share, but towards the condominium the joint liability makes it enforceable in any case.

The current year and the preceding one: how they are counted

The reference is to condominium fiscal years, not to a day-by-day calculation. The current year is the one in which the transfer occurs, the preceding one is the one immediately before. Contributions older than this span remain the seller's exclusive burden, having accrued while they were still the owner.

This means the manager must keep accounts that allow each contribution to be precisely attributed to its fiscal year. Only in this way is it possible to establish which arrears fall within the buyer's joint liability and which instead can be claimed only from the previous owner.

Notifying the title: the moment that shifts liability

An often overlooked step is the notification to the manager. The seller remains jointly liable with the buyer for contributions accrued until they deliver to the manager a certified copy of the title that determines the transfer. Until that moment, for the condominium, the seller continues to be the point of reference and remains co-obligated.

For this reason the prompt communication of the sale, with the title, is in everyone's interest: the seller, who thus interrupts their co-obligation for later contributions; the buyer, who formally enters the condominium register; and the manager, who updates the data and correctly directs payment requests.

What the manager must do

On learning of a change of ownership, the manager has some orderly steps to follow so as not to lose the right to recover the contributions and to correctly update the unit's position.

• Obtain the certified copy of the transfer title and record the date of communication.
• Update the condominium register with the new owner and their unit.
• Check which arrears fall within the current year and the preceding one, and therefore within the buyer's joint liability.
• Direct payment requests to the more solvent debtor between seller and buyer for the jointly owed arrears.
• Keep the older contributions, beyond the two-year span, charged to the seller alone.

Why a good register avoids disputes

Managing transfers is one of the areas where disorganised data produces most errors: contributions claimed from the wrong person, communications sent to the old owner, arrears attributed to the wrong fiscal year. An up-to-date register linked to the accounts is the best prevention.

In AmministraPro the change of owner updates the unit's position and links the arrears to the fiscal year of accrual, so the manager immediately sees which amounts fall within the buyer's joint liability and to whom to direct the request. The features for the condominium register and instalment management, with their plans, are described on the /funzioni and /prezzi pages.

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