Property due diligence in Italy: the checklist

Property due diligence is the set of checks made before committing to a property: who owns it and what weighs on it, how it is built, whether it matches its permits, and where it stands. For a home the work is usually done by the notary (notaio, the public official who handles property sales in Italy) and the buyer's surveyor; for a portfolio or a commercial property lawyers, valuers and consultants join in. The list below follows the four parts the work is usually divided into, with the relevant Italian law next to each point. Italian laws are cited by their Italian name and number, as your notary or the local council would cite them.

The right moment is before the preliminary contract (contratto preliminare), or at least before the conditions in the purchase offer expire. A problem found later costs more.

Legal checks

This part establishes who can sell and what is really being bought. It is the notary's job, but it pays to start it early.

1. Title history: previous transfers of ownership are traced with a search of the property registers (ispezione ipotecaria), by person or by property. For someone else's property it costs 8 euros per name or property and 5 euros per entry, with a reduction for online requests.
2. The same search shows mortgages, foreclosures, seizures and pending legal claims. The seller's mortgage is normally cleared at completion; a foreclosure or a registered legal claim changes the negotiation.
3. If the property came to the seller as a gift, read article 563 of the Civil Code as amended by Law 182/2025: reducing a gift no longer affects third parties who bought the property from the recipient, and the heirs entitled to a reserved share are compensated in money. For estates opened before the law there is a transitional period linked to registered reduction claims or objections, and that is exactly what the notary looks for.
4. The owners shown in the land registry (catasto) must match those in the property registers. Before the deed the notary identifies the registered cadastral owners and checks they match (Law 52/1985, article 29, paragraph 1-bis).
5. In a condominium the buyer is jointly liable with the seller for the service charges of the current and the previous year; the seller remains liable until the building manager receives a certified copy of the deed (article 63 of the implementing provisions of the Civil Code). Ask for the manager's statement of unpaid charges and the minutes recording extraordinary works already approved.
6. Easements, usufruct, existing leases and rights of first refusal have to be looked for in the deeds and asked of the seller. For farmland leased to a working farmer who has cultivated it for at least two years, the tenant has a right of first refusal and 30 days to use it after being notified of the preliminary contract (Law 590/1965, article 8). See agricultural right of first refusal.
7. A preliminary contract made as a public deed or an authenticated private agreement can be registered: the final deed then takes priority over mortgages and foreclosures entered against the seller after registration. The protection lapses if the final deed is not registered within one year of the agreed date, and in any case within three years (article 2645-bis of the Civil Code).

In the provinces of Trento and Bolzano and in the other municipalities under the tavolare land registry (catasto tavolare), ownership, mortgages and easements are recorded in the land book (libro fondiario) rather than the property registers, and that is where the check is made.

Technical checks

These concern the building and the unit: structure, systems, performance. A surveyor does them with a site visit and the seller's documents.

• The land registry search (visura catastale, free online with SPID, CIE or CNS since 1 January 2025) and the cadastral floor plan (planimetria catastale), which the seller downloads or has a delegated surveyor download. The floor plan should be compared room by room with the property as it is: since 2010 the owners declare in the deed that the cadastral data and floor plan match the actual state, and a qualified surveyor's certificate can take the place of that declaration. Without it the deed is void (Law 52/1985, article 29, paragraph 1-bis).
• The energy performance certificate (APE): it must be made available from the start of negotiations, handed over at the end and attached to the deed, and it is valid for up to 10 years (Legislative Decree 192/2005, article 6).
• The installers' declarations of conformity for the electrical, gas and heating systems. For systems installed before 27 March 2008, if the declaration cannot be found it can be replaced by a statement signed by a professional with at least five years' experience in that field (Ministerial Decree 37/2008, article 7).
• Fitness for use (agibilità): the certified notice confirms safety, hygiene, healthiness, energy saving and that the work matches the approved design (Presidential Decree 380/2001, article 24).
• The structural test certificate (collaudo statico) or certificate of structural fitness, the design year and structure type, any seismic upgrading and, if assessed, the building's seismic risk class.
• The state of the roof, façades and common parts, which in a condominium can also be read in the meeting minutes.

The land registry search and floor plan describe the individual flat, the subalterno. Open data only goes down to the cadastral parcel and the building: for the unit you need the documents.

Planning checks

This is the part that most often brings surprises, because a property can be correctly registered in the land registry and still not match its permits.

The surveyor asks the local council for access to its records (Law 241/1990) and reconstructs the lawful status of the building (stato legittimo): the one set by the permit that allowed or legalised its construction, or by the permit for the last work on the whole property, together with later permits for partial works. For buildings put up when no permit was required, the original land registry records, photographs and archive documents are used (Presidential Decree 380/2001, article 9-bis, paragraph 1-bis).

The lawful status is then compared with the actual one. Differences within 2% of the permitted measurements are not violations. For work completed by 24 May 2024 the tolerance grows as the unit gets smaller: 3% between 300 and 500 square metres of usable floor area, 4% between 100 and 300, 5% below 100 and 6% below 60 (Presidential Decree 380/2001, article 34-bis, as amended by Decree Law 69/2024).

Sale deeds for buildings begun after 17 March 1985 are void unless they state, as declared by the seller, the details of the building permit or of the permit granted in amnesty (Presidential Decree 380/2001, article 46).

For land, the planning use certificate (certificato di destinazione urbanistica) is required or the deed is void: the council issues it within 30 days and it is valid for one year, provided the plan does not change in the meantime (Presidential Decree 380/2001, article 30).

What remains is the municipal plan (zone, designation, land reserved for compulsory purchase, buffer zones) and landscape protection. Areas protected by law include, among others, the 300-metre strip along the sea and lake shores and land covered by woods (Legislative Decree 42/2004, article 142); there, changes to the external appearance need landscape authorisation, valid for five years (article 146).

Area checks

These tell you what surrounds the property and what can happen there. They use public data, starting from the exact point.

ISPRA's national maps bring together the river basin authorities' plans and have no legal force: the official check is the river basin authority's plan. In the same way, the landscape restrictions map is a survey, and the final answer comes from the heritage office (Soprintendenza).

If you do it for a client

Professionals preparing due diligence usually start with the area checks, because they are the only ones that need no documents from the seller, and they steer the rest: a P3 zone leads to questions about basements, burnt land leads to the council's wildfire register, a landscape restriction changes the value of a renovation project.

Our report takes this first step from the address or from foglio and particella, with the code, source, licence and date of every figure, and lists the documents to request for the other parts, with offices and costs. The rest stays with the notary and the surveyor. How valuers, surveyors and notaries use it is explained in valuers and surveyors; for buyers of their own home the same list, in simpler words, is in What to check before buying a house in Italy.