Seven claims, checked against the statute
Quick answer: English-language guidance on buying property in Italy repeats a small number of claims that are either wrong or wrong in the part that costs money. This page states each claim as it is usually printed, gives the provision that actually governs it, and says what believing it costs. Every citation is to the Italian statute or decree rather than to another guide.
None of these are obscure. They appear in bank explainers, relocation blogs, agency FAQs and, in several cases, in material written by firms selling services to foreign buyers. Each one is an approximate translation of an Italian concept into an English one that behaves differently.
1. “Italy charges stamp duty on property”
The claim appears as a rate: Italian stamp duty at 2% or 9%, often introduced as the local version of SDLT.
No tax of that name exists. The charge is the imposta di registro under DPR 131/1986, Tariffa Parte I art. 1, at 2% for a prima casa and 9% for a second home bought from a private seller. Where the seller is the constructing company the transaction falls under VAT instead, at 4%, 10% or 22% depending on the property, and registration tax drops to a fixed amount.
The base is where the two systems part. UK stamp duty land tax is charged on what you pay. Italian registration tax on a resale from a private seller is charged on the cadastral value, which on most Italian property sits well below the market price. A 9% headline rate applied to a cadastral value produces a smaller bill than a 5% rate applied to a price. Anyone comparing Italy to another market on headline rates alone is comparing two different bases and reaching the wrong answer.
The mechanics are in Italian registration tax, and the gap between the two values in cadastral value against market price.
2. “You will be taxed on the price you paid”
This is the correction to the correction, and it is the most expensive item on this page.
Having learned that Italian purchase tax runs on cadastral value, most sources stop there, as though the base arrived on its own.
It does not. The governing provision is article 1 comma 497 of Law 266/2005. The cadastral base, known as prezzo-valore, applies only where the buyer requests it of the notaio at the deed. It is available to a natural person not acting in the course of a business, profession or craft, buying residential property and its appurtenances, and it does not apply to sales subject to VAT.
A buyer who never asks is taxed on the price. On a purchase where the cadastral value is a third of the price, the difference between the two bases on a 9% rate is most of the tax bill.
Two habits follow. Ask the question in writing before the deed rather than on the day, and ask the notaio to confirm in the deed that the request was made. A notaio will normally raise it unprompted; normally is not a plan.
3. “The visura catastale shows who owns it”
Nearly every English source calls the visura the Italian land registry extract and reads the name on it as the owner.
Neither half holds. The cadastre is a fiscal register, and Italian law gives it no probative value on ownership. It names an intestatario, the person the cadastral record is attributed to. Ownership and encumbrances are established in a different register entirely, the registri immobiliari held at the Conservatoria, where every deed transferring or charging a real right is transcribed.
The two registers drift apart for a mundane reason: updating the cadastre after a death or a gift is a separate step, and heirs often never take it. The visura goes on naming somebody who has not owned the property for years. The document is accurate about the register and wrong about the world.
Treat a visura as a title check and you have performed no title check at all. What the document does and does not answer is set out in the visura catastale explained.
4. “The notaio checks that the building is legal”
Because a notaio is a public officer, English sources assume the notarial check reaches planning and building compliance.
It does not. Article 46 of DPR 380/2001, and for older buildings article 40 of Law 47/1985, set out what the deed must contain. A deed transferring a building must state, by the seller’s declaration, the details of the building permit or of the amnesty application. The notaio records that declaration and searches the register for ownership and charges. Comparing the building to the permits is a technical exercise and is nobody’s job unless a buyer commissions it.
A nuance worth stating precisely, because it is reported as a flat rule: the nullity attaches to the absence of the mention in the deed. The Sezioni Unite settled the point in 2019, treating it as a textual nullity under article 1418 paragraph 3 of the civil code. Where the omission was not caused by the title’s non-existence, the deed can be confirmed by a later act in the same form supplying the missing mention. Where no title exists at all, there is nothing to confirm.
Rely on the assumption and the discovery arrives after the deposit is paid, when there is no leverage left. The subject is covered in abusi edilizi and buying with irregularities.
5. “You lose your deposit if you pull out”
This is printed as a flat rule about “the deposit”, with no distinction between kinds.
Italian law recognises three payments that look identical at the bank.
| The wording in the contract | Governing article | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| A titolo di caparra confirmatoria | art. 1385 civil code | Buyer defaults, seller keeps it. Seller defaults, buyer claims double. Either party may instead sue for performance or termination with full damages |
| A titolo di caparra penitenziale | art. 1386 civil code | The agreed price of withdrawal. Pay it and walk; no further damages follow |
| A titolo di acconto | no special regime | Plain part payment. No remedy attaches to it at all |
The flat version is true of the acconto, half true of the confirmatoria and misleading about the penitenziale. A buyer told they will simply lose the money does not know that a defaulting seller owes them twice it, and does not know that the wording which looks strongest is the one that caps their remedy. The three phrases, and how to find yours, are in the caparra confirmatoria.
6. “The 2024 Salva Casa decree was a building amnesty”
It is routinely introduced as a condono, a pardon for unpermitted work.
The instrument is decree-law 69/2024, converted by law 105/2024, amending DPR 380/2001. Italy’s amnesties ran in 1985, 1994 and 2003, and those forgave completed unlawful work on payment of a sum. Salva Casa does something different: it changes the test for whether work counts as unlawful, and creates a lighter regularisation route for minor breaches.
Concretely, the flat 2% construction tolerance became bands that scale inversely with unit size, for works completed before 24 May 2024: 6% under 60 sqm, 5% up to 100, 4% to 300, 3% to 500, and 2% above. A new article 36-bis splits the old double-conformity test for minor breaches, requiring building rules as at the works and planning rules as at the application.
A drafting detail that is still being reported wrongly: the 6% band was added during conversion, so summaries written from the original decree text quote the pre-conversion figures and stop at 5%. Anyone relying on a published band should check whether the source predates the conversion law.
On the amnesty reading a buyer is told a building with no permit is now fine, which it is not. On the pre-conversion figures, a small flat whose divergence falls inside the 6% band is treated as a breach when it is not. Both errors are set out against the statute in the Salva Casa decree for property buyers.
7. “Buying property in Italy gets you residency”
The version in circulation attaches a threshold, usually EUR 250,000, to a golden visa route.
There is no such route. Italy offers no property-purchase path to residence. The Investor Visa and the Elective Residence Visa are separate permissions with their own capital and income tests, and property ownership satisfies neither. The EUR 250,000 figure that circulates belongs to a different instrument entirely and has never applied to buying a house.
This is the only item on this page usually printed by somebody selling something. A purchase made for a residence permit that the purchase cannot deliver is not a recoverable mistake.
How to check any of this for yourself
The reason these claims survive is that almost nobody writing in English checks them against the source, and the sources are public.
Italian primary legislation is published in consolidated form on Normattiva, the state’s official database, where a decree can be read as it stands today rather than as it was enacted. That distinction matters more than it sounds: the Salva Casa tolerance bands differ between the decree as issued and the decree as converted, and a database that shows only the original text will mislead you. The Gazzetta Ufficiale carries the enacting texts themselves.
For tax, the Agenzia delle Entrate publishes both the rates and its own interpretive circulars, and the circulars are frequently where the operative detail lives. The prezzo-valore request is a case in point: the rate is trivially findable, the requirement that the buyer ask for it is in the practice guidance rather than in the headline.
For building and planning, the consolidated DPR 380/2001 is on Normattiva, and comune-level rules are on the comune’s own site rather than anywhere national. Regional variation here is real, and a national answer to a local question is usually the wrong answer.
Three habits make a claim checkable rather than plausible. Ask which instrument governs it, by number and year. Ask which version, since Italian decrees are routinely amended at conversion. And ask whether the source is describing the rule or describing somebody’s summary of the rule, because in this field most English writing is the second.
What to do with all this
The proportionate response is not suspicion of every English source. It is knowing which questions have an Italian answer that does not translate, and asking those in writing.
Where an English framing is safe: the shape of the transaction, the professional roles, the rough size of the cost stack, the calendar. These translate well enough.
Where it is not: anything about the tax base, anything about which register proves what, anything about deposits, and anything that describes an Italian permission by an English name. In those four areas the English word imports assumptions the Italian instrument does not carry.
The advantages of getting this right are unglamorous and large: the correct tax base on the deed, a title check that actually checked title, a deposit clause whose remedy you know, and no purchase made for a permit it cannot produce. The disadvantages of getting it wrong are the same list inverted, discovered late.
The behavioural side of this, what buyers themselves do wrong rather than what they are told, is in mistakes foreign buyers make. The order in which the checks belong is in due diligence before the compromesso.
Sources
DPR 131/1986, Tariffa Parte I art. 1, on registration tax rates. Law 266/2005 art. 1 co. 497, on the prezzo-valore base and the buyer’s request. DPR 633/1972 on VAT rates for new-build purchases. Italian case law on the non-probative character of the cadastre in relation to ownership. DPR 380/2001 art. 46 and Law 47/1985 art. 40 on the mention of building titles, with Corte di Cassazione Sezioni Unite 2019 on the textual nature of that nullity and its confirmability. Civil code arts. 1385, 1386 and 1418. Decree-law 69/2024 as converted by law 105/2024, amending DPR 380/2001 art. 34-bis and introducing art. 36-bis. Italian immigration law on the Investor Visa and Elective Residence Visa. All checked 7 September 2026.
This page is a reference rather than advice. Verify anything that bears on a transaction with an Italian notaio, avvocato or commercialista instructed by you rather than by the agent.
Frequently Asked Questions
No tax of that name exists. The equivalent is the imposta di registro, charged under DPR 131/1986 at 2% for a prima casa and 9% for a second home from a private seller. The important difference is the base: it is charged on cadastral value, not on the price paid.
No. Article 1 comma 497 of Law 266/2005 requires the buyer to ask the notaio for it at the deed. A buyer who does not ask is taxed on the price instead, and on a normal Italian resale that is a materially worse outcome.
No. The cadastre is a fiscal register with no probative value on ownership. It names the intestatario of the cadastral record, who after an unrecorded succession may not be the owner. Ownership is established by searching the registri immobiliari at the Conservatoria.
No. Under article 46 of DPR 380/2001 the notaio records the seller's declaration of the building titles and searches the register for ownership and charges. Whether the building matches those titles is a technical comparison, and it needs a surveyor.
That is true of one of three payments Italian law recognises. Under article 1385 of the civil code a caparra confirmatoria is forfeited if the buyer defaults and claimable at double if the seller does. A caparra penitenziale under article 1386 is the agreed price of withdrawal, and an acconto carries no remedy at all.
No. Italy's amnesties ran in 1985, 1994 and 2003 and forgave completed unlawful work on payment. Salva Casa, decree-law 69/2024 converted by law 105/2024, changes how you assess whether work was unlawful and creates a lighter route for minor breaches. It gives no relief where a building has no title.
No. Italy has no property-purchase route to residence. The Investor Visa and the Elective Residence Visa are separate permissions with their own capital and income tests, and neither is satisfied by owning a house.
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