Visura, survey, APE, CDU and area report: what you need and when

Anyone buying a home in Italy is asked, within a few weeks, for a visura, a survey (perizia), the APE and sometimes a certificate from the municipality. The names sound alike and they answer different questions. The visura shows how the property is recorded in the land registry, the APE how much energy it uses, the planning use certificate what the municipal plan allows on a piece of land. The survey is a professional's work on the actual house. The area report looks at everything around it.

The five documents side by side

Fees and conditions are those published by each body on its own pages: municipal fees change from one municipality to the next, so Milan and Rimini are only examples.

Before viewing: the area and the land registry

The first two checks need nobody's permission. Type the address on the site and you immediately see, for free, the liveability index of the area. If the house is of interest, the full report adds flood zones, landslides, the seismic zone, local prices as a range (never the value of that house), the cadastral sheet and parcel of the plot and, in Lombardy, Veneto, the province of Bolzano and the metropolitan city of Turin, what the municipal plan provides. The report works on the plot and the building: it says little about one flat compared with another in the same block, and it says so.

With sheet and parcel you can download the visura. The step-by-step guide is in a separate article. For a flat you also need the subalterno (unit number), which the seller knows.

Before the offer: APE and floor plan

The APE must be made available to the buyer from the start of negotiations (decreto legislativo 192/2005, article 6), and the energy class must already appear in the listing. If the listing does not show it, ask. In Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna the certificate can be checked online in the regional energy register with its code.

Only people with rights over the property can download the cadastral floor plan (planimetria catastale), so you ask the seller for it. Comparing it room by room with the house is the quickest way to spot moved walls or enclosed verandas.

Before the preliminary contract: your own surveyor

This is when a surveyor you trust really earns their fee. With the seller's authorisation they can request the building files from the municipality (accesso agli atti) and compare them with the state of the house and with the floor plan. Differences found at this stage can be dealt with before signing, with time and costs that can still be written into the contract. The bank's valuation comes later, when you apply for a mortgage, and serves the bank to value its security: it does not replace your own surveyor's work.

For land: the municipal certificate

The planning use certificate must be attached to deeds of sale of land, or the deed is void (DPR 380/2001, article 30). It is not needed for land belonging to a building recorded in the land registry, if the total stays under 5,000 square metres. For a building plot or a field it is worth requesting before the preliminary contract, because it is the only document that states with certainty what the plan allows. For land our report gives the land sheet for free (area, slope, elevation, what is around it) and, where covered, the zone in the municipal plan.

Before completion: the notary's checks

In the deed of sale of a building, the seller declares that the cadastral data and floor plan match the actual state of the property, otherwise the deed is void (legge 52/1985, article 29, paragraph 1-bis); the declaration can be replaced by a statement from a qualified professional. The notary usually also searches the property registers (ispezione ipotecaria) for mortgages and seizures. These are steps the notary takes, but a discrepancy found on completion day is harder to handle than one found by your surveyor a month earlier.

All the checks, in order, are in the guide What to check before buying a house in Italy.

Sources

Conditions and fees checked on the official pages on 14 September 2026; laws read on Normattiva on 26 September 2026:

• Agenzia delle Entrate, visura catastale online and planimetria catastale.
• Comune di Milano, certificato di destinazione urbanistica; Comune di Rimini, certificato di destinazione urbanistica.
• DPR 380/2001, article 30; D.Lgs. 192/2005, article 6; legge 52/1985, article 29.