Condominium

Valid notice of meeting if sent to a close relative

The possibility of proving that the addressee had knowledge of it counts

by Annarita D'Ambrosio

26 April 2025

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Key points

The story
Invalidity in convocation
Delivery to a close relative
Conclusions

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Expenses for renovation work on a condominium swimming pool at the centre of the court of cassation ruling 10361/2025, filed on 22 April. For the apportionment, the identification in the regulations of the facility as condominial is decisive.

The affair

The case was brought by a shareholder-lawyer, co-owner of a building in a condominium where there was a swimming pool: he asked to ascertain the lack of co-ownership of the system and the nullity and/or annulment of the resolution on the allocation of expenses as it was deemed to be affected by the defect of notification of the condominium meeting.

The condominium rejected the first claim, invoking the provision of Article 7, number 4 of the condominium regulations, transcribed and therefore contractual, which defined the property as common property with the consequent burden on all the condominium owners to share in the expenses for its preservation, enjoyment and innovation.

Invalidity in convocation

More interesting is the second issue, namely the supposed invalidity of the deliberation due to the lawyer's failure to duly convene the assembly and the condominium's failure to prove the notification of the convocation of the assembly to all the co-owners, including the brother of the appellant and co-owner of the property.

At issue in this case is the hypothesis concerning the proof of the proper communication of the summons to the appellant, the latter having refused to collect the envelope deposited at the post office. The reasoning of the appeal judges is to be shared," write the Supreme Court, "according to which the document had in any case reached the addressee, who had, however, considered it advisable not to collect it, so much so that the envelope was marked, albeit in pen and not printed, "refusal to collect".

Delivery to a close associate

The supreme judges write that the practice, previously uncontested in the condominium, whereby the notice of the condominium assembly, addressed to a condominium non-resident in the building, is delivered to another condominium owner, jointly with the former, must be considered legitimate (Supreme Court, 8449/2008).

Also with regard to the service of judicial documents, service in a place that does not coincide with the personal data of the addressee does not result in nullity of the proceedings and the judgment. The important thing is that it can be proved that the addressee had knowledge of the content of the document. In this specific case, therefore, the conclusion of the appeal judges, who held that the communication of the convocation of the meeting at the lawyer's previous place of residence was valid, is supportable.

The property, his former residence, was in fact still inhabited by his mother. Although the woman was in a care facility, it was equally demonstrable that the lawyer periodically went to the flat to change her mother's clothes.

Conclusions

The resolution," the judges concluded, "is therefore valid, as is the convocation of the meeting. The notice of the meeting had reached the sphere of the addressee, who had voluntarily refused to read it. The pen signature of the refusal was that of a postal employee, therefore valid. The lawyer was well aware that a condominium meeting had been convened.