Clothes hanging in apartment buildings: dripping onto the property below must be avoided

Drying laundry in condominiums in the absence of spaces or rooms expressly designated for that use can be a source of litigation. Two pronouncements deal with this issue, the first in relation to the placement of wires attached to balconies, the second dealing with removable clotheslines.

In detail, the Court of Catania, in its judgment 6175 of late December 2025, specifies that the airspace above an exclusively owned courtyard falls within the owner's rights (pursuant to Article 840, Civil Code) and cannot be occupied by third parties by means of overhanging structures in the absence of a constitutive title. Thus, even the placement of wires for stretching clothes hooked onto balconies does not constitute an autonomous real right, nor is it susceptible of acquisition by usucaption.

The so-called servitude of dripping water, i.e. the real right that allows the owner of a property to let rainwater drain or wash from his roof, gutters or balconies onto the neighbouring property, cannot be considered implicitly included in the construction of a projecting balcony. Infiltration from the property above integrates strict liability for things in custody (pursuant to Article 2051, Civil Code), with the burden of proving the fortuitous event falling on the custodian, i.e. the owner of the flat above.

The other ruling is by the Court of Cassino (judgement 39/2026) and concerns the granting of the application by a condominium owner for the removal of a clothesline that the owner above him had placed on the external perimeter wall of his terrace to hang clothes that were dripping onto the terrace below, effectively preventing full enjoyment of it. For the condominium owner who brought the action, the positioning of the clothesline not only violated Article 832 of the Civil Code in that it prevented full enjoyment of the property, but also constituted an emulative act (pursuant to Article 833 of the Civil Code), which prohibits owners from performing acts whose sole purpose is to harm or cause nuisance to others.

In itself, the judges wrote, the act of putting up the removable clothesline and hanging the laundry on it to dry is not an act devoid of utility and therefore cannot automatically constitute an emulative act. In any case, the clothesline is to be removed for violation of Article 9 of the Condominium Rules prohibiting the hanging of laundry or other things in such a way as to cause harm or nuisance to the other tenants. The regulation binds everyone and is intended to regulate every aspect of condominium life including the use of private property.