Who pays if water leaks into my condo from the unit above?

It depends on the declaration and the two insurance policies involved, which is why this is a question to settle before closing rather than after a leak. In a stacked condominium the units share vertical waste and vent stacks and supply risers that run through multiple units' walls. Typically the stack itself is a common element while the branch lines inside your unit are yours, but that split is set by the declaration and it varies between buildings. The master policy and your own walls-in policy then divide the loss along a related but not identical line, and the deductible on a master policy can be large enough that the association passes it through. So a failure two floors up can become your bill, your insurer's bill, or the association's, and the only way to know in advance is to read the declaration and both policies. What the inspection covers is the part that reduces the odds and limits the damage. Within scope and inside your unit we look for signs of prior leakage at the ceilings — the fingerprints of exactly this event having already happened, which is genuinely useful information about the building — and at the high-risk locations: under sinks, at the water heater, at laundry hookups and at the unit's shutoffs. We check whether accessible unit-level shutoffs exist at all, since a unit you cannot isolate is a unit you cannot stop flooding, and whether the water heater sits in a pan with a functioning drain. In stacked buildings a clogged condensate line in an upper unit is a routine cause of water in the unit below, so condensate handling gets attention as well. One question worth asking the association: many buildings, especially after a loss, impose rules on washing-machine hose replacement or water heater age. If yours does, that tells you both about the risk and about how the board manages it.