Condominio in Italy: Common Parts, Millesimi and How a Building Is Run

Condominio is the Italian legal term for a building, or a complex of buildings, where individual units belong to different owners while certain parts, the roof, the stairs, the building's structure, belong to everyone together. Most Italian apartment buildings are a condominio in this legal sense, whether or not the people living there think of it that way.

Buying an apartment in Italy usually means buying into a condominio automatically, with a proportional stake in the shared parts and a share of their running costs. This page orients that whole picture: what counts as a parte comune, how each owner's share is measured, and the three bodies, the assemblea, the amministratore, and the regolamento, that actually run the building day to day. The two mechanics readers search for most, the exact assembly quorum and who pays what, get their own dedicated pages, linked below.

Information verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice for an individual situation.

What counts as a condominio's common parts

Art. 1117 c.c. lists what belongs to every owner together, unless a unit's title deed says otherwise. The list falls into three groups.

Ownership of these parts is not split equally between owners. It is proportional to each unit's value, so a larger or more valuable unit holds a larger slice of the roof, the stairwell and the facade than a smaller one (art. 1118 c.c.).

A buyer purchasing a 90 square metre apartment on the third floor of a nine unit building becomes a co-owner of the roof, the stairwell, the facade and the water and electrical risers the moment the purchase deed is signed, in a proportion set by that apartment's millesimi, without signing anything beyond the deed itself.

Tabelle millesimali: how each owner's share is measured

The tabelle millesimali express the whole building's value as 1.000 (one thousand) millesimi. Every unit is assigned a number of millesimi reflecting its value relative to the building as a whole, generally based on size, floor, exposure and finish quality, established by a technical valuation when the tables are first drawn up or later revised.

That figure does two jobs at once. It sets an owner's voting weight when the assemblea checks whether a meeting is validly constituted and whether a resolution has enough support, covered in depth on our owners meeting page, and it sets the default basis for splitting ordinary running costs, covered on our spese condominiali page.

As an illustration only, take a small building with four units and these hypothetical millesimi: 300, 250, 250 and 200 (summing to 1.000). For an ordinary conservation expense of 10.000 euro, apportioned by value under art. 1123 c.c., the owner holding 300 millesimi pays 300 out of 1.000, or 3.000 euro, and the two owners holding 250 millesimi each pay 2.500 euro. The mechanics for other expense categories, which do not all follow this simple proportional rule, are covered on the dedicated spese condominiali page.

When a complex has more than one building

The rules above are not limited to a single building with one entrance and one staircase. Art. 1117-bis c.c. extends the whole condominio regime, so far as compatible, to any situation where several units, several buildings, or several separate condomini share parts covered by art. 1117, commonly called a supercondominio. A gated development of five separate apartment blocks sharing one entrance road, a shared garden and a shared water main is a routine example: each block can run its own ordinary assemblea for its own building, while decisions on the shared road, garden and main are taken by a joint assembly, generally through a representative each block designates once the combined complex has more than sixty participants (art. 67, disp. att. c.c.).

The three organs that run a condominio

Assemblea

The assemblea is the meeting of all the owners and the condominio's deliberative body. It meets at least once a year to approve the amministratore's annual budget and financial statement (art. 1135 c.c.), and it decides on repairs, the annual budget, appointing or removing the amministratore, and any innovation to the common parts, following the constitutive and voting thresholds set out at art. 1136 c.c. Those thresholds, the prima and seconda convocazione quorums, are precise and are the subject of our companion page: assemblea di condominio, the quorum rules.

Amministratore

The amministratore is the condominio's manager. The assembly appoints one directly, or, once the condominio has more than eight owners, a court will appoint one on request if the assembly fails to act (art. 1129 c.c.). Duties include executing the assembly's resolutions, convening the annual meeting, collecting contributions and paying common expenses, handling tax compliance, keeping several mandatory registers (owner details, meeting minutes, accounts), and preparing the annual rendiconto, the financial statement, for the assembly's approval within 180 days of the accounting year's close (art. 1130 c.c.). A separate guide on this site is planned to go deeper into the amministratore's appointment, powers and removal.

Regolamento di condominio

The regolamento is the building's written rulebook: how the common parts may be used, the criteria for splitting expenses (within the limits the code sets), rules protecting the building's appearance, and administrative procedure. It becomes mandatory once a condominio has more than ten owners (art. 1138 c.c.), and the assembly approves or revises it with the same elevated majority used for the condominio's more significant decisions, covered on the owners meeting page. A regolamento cannot take away a right an owner already holds under their purchase deed or an existing agreement, cannot override several specific code articles the law treats as untouchable, and cannot ban keeping domestic animals.

Two questions this page hands off

Two of the most searched condominio questions get their own dedicated page because the mechanics deserve the space. Exactly how many owners, and how much value, are needed to hold a valid assembly and pass a resolution is covered on assemblea di condominio: the quorum rules. Exactly how a given expense gets split among owners, including the different rule that applies to stairs and lifts, is covered on spese condominiali: who pays what.

What this page does not cover

Two related topics have their own specific legal regime and are not covered here. Installing a camera aimed at the common parts requires a specific assembly resolution and its own privacy compliance, under art. 1122-ter c.c. and Garante guidance. A dispute with a noisy neighbour has its own civil and criminal routes, running through art. 844 c.c. and art. 659 c.p. Both deserve their own dedicated treatment rather than a summary here.

For the wider landscape of Italian recording, surveillance and privacy law, see our overview of Italy recording laws.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a condominio in Italy?

A condominio is the legal regime that applies automatically whenever a building is divided among multiple owners and it contains parts, such as the roof, the stairs, the foundations or the building's systems, that by nature serve more than one unit. Those parts become shared property under art. 1117 c.c., and the owners collectively form the condominio.

Do I have to join the condominio if I do not want to?

No opting out is possible. Owning a unit in a building that has shared parts makes you a condòmino by operation of law. The one narrow exception the code allows is renouncing the use of a centralised heating or cooling system, under the conditions set out at art. 1118 c.c., which still leaves you liable for the system's extraordinary maintenance.

How is my share of the building calculated?

Through the tabelle millesimali, a table that expresses every unit's value as a portion of 1.000 (one thousand) millesimi for the whole building. That share generally sets both your voting weight at the assembly and your portion of ordinary expenses, subject to the specific apportionment rules covered on our spese condominiali page.

When is an amministratore mandatory in an Italian condominio?

Once the condominio has more than eight owners, art. 1129 c.c. makes an amministratore mandatory. If the assembly does not appoint one, a court will do so on the request of one or more co-owners or of an outgoing administrator.

When does a condominio need a written regolamento?

A written regolamento di condominio becomes mandatory once the building has more than ten owners, under art. 1138 c.c. Smaller buildings may adopt one voluntarily, but the code does not require it below that threshold.

Can the condominio's regolamento ban pets?

No. Art. 1138 c.c. specifically provides that the rules of the regolamento cannot prohibit owning or keeping domestic animals, regardless of what an older or stricter regolamento might say.

What if my building has no formal tabelle millesimali?

The proportional value rule of art. 1118 c.c. still applies as the default basis for each owner's share even without a formally adopted table, but a missing or outdated table is a common source of disputes over voting weight and expense splits, and is usually worth resolving formally rather than relying on an informal estimate.