The Check Your Italian Notary Doesn't Do: Planning Compliance, Explained

By Patrick · 2026-10-13

Conformità urbanistica (planning compliance) means an Italian house, as it stands today, matches the building permits on file with the comune. Anything built or altered without one is an abuso edilizio (unauthorised building work). The sale can be legally valid even when the house does not match, so the problem passes to the buyer. A geometra can check before you commit.

This guide explains the two terms, why a signed deed proves less than most foreign buyers assume, what an irregularity can cost the new owner, and how to have it checked.

Two terms, one question

Every Italian building has a paper trail at the comune (municipality): the titoli edilizi, the permits and filings that authorised its construction and each later change. Planning law calls the result the stato legittimo (lawful state) of the building: what those documents, taken together, actually allow (article 9-bis of Presidential Decree 380/2001, the national building code).

The question behind both terms is simple. Does the house you walked through match that paper trail? If yes, it has conformità urbanistica. Where it does not, the difference is an abuso edilizio, whether it is one moved wall or a whole extra floor.

What an abuso looks like in practice

Most irregularities are not dramatic. They are the ordinary improvements of the last fifty years, done without paperwork:

• A veranda or porch glazed in and used as a room.
• An attic, cellar or garage turned into a bedroom or a kitchen.
• An extension, a pool or an outbuilding that was never authorised.
• A barn or store described in the listing as a guest house.
• Internal walls moved, or windows and doors opened in outside walls.

Rural houses are the usual suspects, because they were extended over generations. The converted barn is a classic, and it was one of the three flags in our Tuscan farmhouse case. In the language of the three-column method, "habitable annex" sits under STATED until a document moves it.

How common is it?

There is no register of irregular houses, but ISTAT, the national statistics office, publishes an index of unauthorised building: the number of illegal constructions for every 100 that the comuni authorise in a year. Nationally it has been running at around 15 per 100. In ISTAT's regional figures for 2022 the South stood above 40 per 100, with Campania and Calabria above 50, against roughly 4 to 5 in the North.

The index counts new building, not the houses already standing. It shows where building without a permit is most common. It does not tell you how many older homes carry an unrecorded change, and that is a question for every region, including the ones with low figures.

Why a valid deed does not mean a compliant house

This is the part that surprises buyers from countries where the notary's signature feels like a guarantee.

Italian law requires the deed of sale to state the details of the building permit. For a building begun before 1 September 1967, a declaration by the seller to that effect takes its place (article 46 of DPR 380/2001 and article 40 of Law 47/1985). A deed without that statement is void.

What the rule checks is the statement, not the building. In 2019 Italy's highest civil court, sitting as the Sezioni Unite (joint divisions), held that if the permit named in the deed exists and relates to that building, the contract is valid whether or not what was built matches it (Cassazione, Sezioni Unite, judgment 8230/2019).

The notaio (notary) verifies identities, title, mortgages and the declarations the law requires. The notaio does not visit the house with the drawings. So a sale can complete correctly and leave you owning a building that does not match its permits.

"Built before 1967" is not a free pass. The seller's declaration keeps the deed valid. It says nothing about the veranda added in 1990, which needed a permit like any other work. For a house from the years before a permit was required, the lawful state is shown by the first cadastral records or other proof such as dated photographs and archive documents (article 9-bis).

Planning compliance is not cadastral compliance

A second check sounds similar and is often confused with the first. Conformità catastale (cadastral compliance) means the floor plan filed at the Catasto, the property tax register, matches the house as it is. The deed must contain a declaration to that effect, or a technician's attestation (article 29, paragraph 1-bis, of Law 52/1985, added in 2010).

An up-to-date cadastral plan shows that the tax register knows about the extra room. It does not show that the comune ever authorised it. A house can match its cadastral plan perfectly and still be irregular. They are two separate checks and you need both.

One useful hint from the Catasto. Every unit has a cadastral category. Homes sit in group A, while C/2 is storage and C/6 is a garage or stable. A "guest house" registered as C/2 is not proof of anything, because the category is a tax classification. It is a very good reason to ask what the comune authorised.

What an irregularity can cost the new owner

• An order to put it right. When a comune finds unauthorised work it orders removal, and the order goes to whoever owns the building at the time. Administrative courts treat it as attached to the property, not to the person who did the work (article 31 of DPR 380/2001; Consiglio di Stato, Adunanza Plenaria, decision 9/2017). Having bought in good faith does not cancel it.
• A blocked renovation. To approve new works, the comune starts from the lawful state of the building. An old irregularity has to be resolved before your own project can be.
• Trouble with the bank. A lender's surveyor may refuse to value space that is not authorised, which matters if you are financing the purchase.
• A harder resale. The next buyer's geometra will find what yours did not look for.

You may have a claim against the seller. That is a civil dispute in an Italian court, and it does not stop the comune in the meantime.

Can it be fixed afterwards?

Sometimes. The route is a sanatoria, a retrospective authorisation, and the answer depends on what was done and where.

• Small deviations may not count at all. The building code tolerates measurement differences of 2% from the approved project. For works completed by 24 May 2024 the band runs from 2% to 6% depending on the size of the unit (article 34-bis of DPR 380/2001, as amended by the 2024 "Salva Casa" decree, Decree-Law 69/2024).
• Partial deviations have a lighter procedure. Since 2024, work that departs in part from its permit can be regularised if it satisfies today's planning rules and the building rules in force when it was done (article 36-bis).
• Work with no permit at all faces the strict test. It must comply with the rules both when it was built and when you apply (article 36).

Each route carries a fine and professional fees, and some work cannot be regularised at all, for example added volume that the local plan does not allow. Then the only cure is removal. Where the property lies in an area under landscape protection, regularising is harder still and needs a separate clearance from the landscape authority.

Do not count on an amnesty. Italy's three building amnesties (condono edilizio, 1985, 1994 and 2003) are closed to new applications. Many houses still carry an application from one of them that the comune never decided. An application on file is not an approval.

How to check before you sign

• Ask the seller or agent for the building permits and the cadastral floor plan. A seller who has them to hand is a good sign.
• Appoint your own geometra, architect or engineer. They request the file from the comune's building office (accesso agli atti), compare it with the house on site and write a short report on compliance.
• Do it before the compromesso (preliminary contract), or make the outcome a condition of your offer. Our step-by-step buying timeline shows where this fits. Archive requests take time, so start early.
• If something turns up, get a written view on whether it can be regularised, what it would cost and who does it. Sellers often regularise before completion, or the price reflects it.
• Buying at auction? The rules differ, including a 120-day window for certain irregularities. See our guide to Italian court auctions.

Where Trovara fits

The Trovara Individual Property Report (€109) does not inspect the municipal file. No online service can, because the records sit in nearly 8,000 separate municipal archives. What it does is tell you how hard to look: an unauthorised-works risk indicator based on the age and type of the building, its condition and the region, a check for heritage and landscape constraints at the property's location, a cadastral lookup once you have the parcel details, and a due-diligence checklist that puts the geometra's check in the right place.

You can see how that reads for a real property in the sample report. The compliance report itself comes from the geometra, and the deed from the notaio. Trovara helps you arrive at both with the right questions.

Prepared with AI assistance and reviewed by the Trovara team. This article is general information, not tax or legal advice. Rules were checked in October 2026 and individual cases differ. Always verify with a notaio, a geometra or a lawyer before you sign.