Reading this judgment of the Court of Rome (section V of 04/05/2020, n. 6847) one touches with one's hand an example of avoidable quarrel between co-owners in  condominiums, a phenomenon that, according to a reliable statistic, has reached considerable proportions, absorbing about a fifth of all pending civil cases in Italy, many of which could be resolved with common sense, as well as, of course, with the mediation tool, which, however has historically had a low success rate (although it is mandatory pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 220 of 11.12.2020, the so-called reform of the condominium, which introduced the new art.71 c. disp. att. cc).

In the quoted judgment we read that an administrator of a large condominium  of Rome was forced to ask for an injunction against the heirs of a co-owner  deceased from  several years, and that the latter opposed the injunction  claiming that they had not been invited to the condominium meeting that had resolved upon  the expenses.

As a first resolution, the Court wands the opponents by recalling the principle (unquestioned  in case law) according to which each co-owner is required to pay the share of expenses attributable to him under a resolution of the condominium meeting and cannot oppose the order of payment issued by the Court, unless it has previously challenged  the resolution itself and the latter has been declared null and void by the competent Court.. In the case in question, the co-owner and his heirs had lapsed from the right to challenge the resolutions in question, because the resolution had not been challenged within the deadline provided for by the Civil Code.

Leaving aside this subtle formal point, the  most interesting part of the judgment  recalls the principle that the the heirs of the deceased co-owner had  never informed the administrator of the condominium of their succession and therefore nd that therefore correctly the  administrator, aware only of the death, had sent all notice of call to the last domicile of the deceased owner, where it had been regularly received. The question is far from trivial, because in the past there have been several conflicting judgments of the Supreme Court, the most pragmatic of which (judgment no.-  stated that  the administrator has no obligation to do any research, and therefore to send any notice, until the heirs have shown him their quality of successors.

The Court of Rome does not take a position around the different rulings of the Supreme Court, and stated that  in any case, by sending the communication to the domicile of the deceased, the administrator acted correctly or, more telling, even beyond its duties because even the sending of the notice of call was  not strictly necessary.

The Rome  Court did not quote the  source of the obligation of the co-owners to provide the necessary information to the administrator, apparently forgetting that  article  1130 of the Civil Code  (modified by law 220/2012)  established the condominium registry in which, among other things, the general information of the owners and holders of real rights of all apartments of the condominium must be registered. The same article specifies that the register must be updated every time changes occur and that they must be communicated to the condominium administrator within sixty days.

The heirs could, in essence, spare themselves the opposition and the consequent expenses, caused only by their negligence in informing the administrator of their supervening status as co-owners.