For buyers based outside Abruzzo
This page sets out how a property purchase actually runs in Italy, where the technical checks belong in that sequence, and what you carry yourself if you skip them. It is written for buyers who are not in Abruzzo.
Where to start
A buyer in Abruzzo needs three separate technical checks before becoming contractually bound: planning compliance, meaning the building as it stands matches the permits held at the comune; cadastral compliance, meaning the floor plan filed at the Catasto matches the rooms you walked through; and the physical condition of the structure and its services. The first two decide whether the property is lawful. The third decides what it will really cost you.
I am Ivan Nozzi, an Ingegnere — the Italian state-registered engineering title, held here in the civil and environmental sector — entered on the register of the Ordine degli Ingegneri della Provincia di Chieti at number 2489, Section A. My practice is at Torrevecchia Teatina in the province of Chieti, a few kilometres inland from the Adriatic coast. I work across the provinces of Chieti and Pescara, and elsewhere in Abruzzo by prior arrangement.
Italy has no standard homebuyer survey of the kind familiar in Britain or Ireland, no lender habit of commissioning one, and no professional in the chain whose job it is to suggest it. What exists instead is a technical check you commission yourself from a registered professional, with the scope written into the engagement letter. If you do not ask for it, the purchase simply proceeds without it.
Timing is the part buyers abroad most often get wrong. A written proposta di acquisto becomes a binding contract the moment the seller accepts it in writing. From that point your deposit is exposed and your room to renegotiate has largely closed, which is why the check belongs before the signature rather than after the handshake.
The real sequence
An Italian purchase runs through six stages, and technical checks only change the outcome if they land in the second one. For each stage, the technical work that belongs to it and what follows if it is skipped.
The proposta di acquisto is an offer that becomes a contract the moment the seller accepts it in writing, which is earlier than most foreign buyers expect. Before you sign it you can ask for it to be conditional on the outcome of a technical check and on mortgage approval; the drafting of those conditions belongs to the notary or a lawyer, not to me. Sign an unconditional offer and later find non-compliant works, and your options narrow to renegotiating or walking away with your deposit at risk.
The technical checks belong between acceptance of the offer and the preliminary contract, because that is the only window in which the price is still open. I file an accesso agli atti request with the comune to obtain the permits on record, compare the approved drawings against the building as built and against the cadastral plan, and document a site visit of what is visible and accessible. You receive a written report: what does not match, how much each discrepancy matters, and what needs further investigation. Skip this stage and everything found later is yours.
The compromesso fixes price, dates and obligations, and must be registered with the Agenzia delle Entrate within thirty days. This is where a technical report earns its fee: it lets you write into the contract exactly what the seller must put right before completion, by when, and at whose cost. Deposits here are usually a caparra confirmatoria, so if you withdraw the seller keeps it and if the seller withdraws he owes you twice the amount. The notary can also register the preliminary contract against the property, which protects you from later sales and charges.
Between the preliminary contract and completion the file is assembled: building permits, cadastral updates, the energy performance certificate, installer conformity declarations for the systems, the chain of title and any mortgages. The energy performance certificate is issued by an accredited certifier on the regional register, not by me. This is also the stage where I file the building and cadastral applications that bring the record back in line with reality, where the legal conditions for doing so are met.
The rogito is the public deed that transfers ownership. The notary identifies the parties, checks the chain of title, mortgages and adverse registrations, and takes into the deed the declarations the law requires, including the building permit references and the statement that the cadastral data and plan match the property as it stands. The notary records those declarations; the notary does not measure the building to test them. If a declaration is inaccurate, the deed is still signed and the consequence lands on the buyer.
After completion the property is yours, and so is every liability attached to it, including works carried out by owners you never met — an enforcement order follows the building, not the person who built it. This is the point to put works in order of priority, usually safety and structure first, then services, then the building envelope, and to obtain the permits for them. Buyers who skip this start on site and discover mid-works that the scheme was never permissible.
What the notary checks, and what the notary does not
The Italian notaio verifies title, the chain of ownership, mortgages and adverse registrations, and takes into the deed the declarations the law requires of the seller, including the building permit references and the statement, mandatory since 2010, that the cadastral data and floor plan match the property as it stands. The notaio acts for the transaction, not for you, and does not visit the property, measure it, or compare it with the drawings approved by the comune. That comparison is a technical check: you commission it, and a registered professional signs it. This single distinction is why the page exists.
How the property check worksWhere the trouble starts
Problems that surface after completion cluster in six places. None of the six is visible on an accompanied viewing.
A mismatch between the building and its permit is the most common finding: an enclosed veranda, a mezzanine, a carport, a loft turned into a bedroom, an extension never declared. Penalties and enforcement orders attach to the property, so they become the new owner's. Some situations can be regularised where the legal conditions are met and some cannot, and the cost belongs in the price negotiation.
Unauthorised works and regularisationThe plan filed at the Catasto must match the property as built, and the seller declares as much in the deed. Moved walls, an added bathroom, a room used for something else make that declaration wrong. Correcting the filing is routine; establishing whether the discrepancy is purely cadastral or also a planning breach is not. They are different problems with different costs.
Pre-purchase property checkThe agibilità records that a building met the safety, hygiene and habitability requirements in force when it was issued. Many older Abruzzo houses have none, and its absence does not always stop a sale. What matters is why it is missing: a house predating a given legal regime is one case, a house never actually completed is another.
Building permits and filingsAll of Abruzzo is classified as seismic, with the class varying from one comune to the next. That classification governs which assessments a structural alteration triggers, what has to be filed or authorised before works start, and therefore the time and cost of the renovation you have in mind. A 1950s masonry house and a 1980s reinforced concrete frame raise different questions.
Structural and seismic designThe asking price and the cost of making the house habitable are two numbers that have to be added before you decide. Rewiring and plumbing, the roof, rising damp, windows, upgrades: a computo metrico — the itemised, priced schedule of works — prepared on the actual property turns impressions into figures. Without one, you are negotiating while holding only half of the arithmetic.
What an engineer costs in ItalyA ruin or a plot is worth what may lawfully be built on it, not what can be imagined on it. The comune's planning instrument, the zoning, any overriding constraints, the documented footprint of what already stands and access to roads and services all decide the answer. The certificato di destinazione urbanistica is the starting point, not the conclusion.
Design and feasibilityWorking remotely
A buyer living abroad can have the entire technical check carried out without travelling. I attend the property myself, with access arranged through the agent or the seller, and record the visit with photographs and a room-by-room video, keyed so that every point named in the report can be found again in the footage.
The deliverable is a written report: what the permits at the comune show, what I found on site, where the two diverge, how much each divergence matters, and what needs further investigation before you can rely on it. Once you have read it we hold a call and go through it together, because the useful part of a technical document is usually the part that has to be explained.
On languages I would rather be exact than generous. I work in Italian, but you are welcome to write to me in English or German too: enquiries in those languages are read and answered. Quotes, contracts and reports are drawn up in Italian, the language that carries legal effect in Italy. Meetings, site visits and calls are held in Italian: you can bring someone to interpret, or I can suggest someone locally.
The check has limits, and I state them before the engagement rather than after. It is non-destructive and covers visible, accessible areas; it depends on the documents the comune actually holds and releases, and on how long the accesso agli atti takes; it is not a valuation and it is not legal advice. Where a heritage constraint applies to the building, the part of the work reserved to architects is carried out by an architect alongside me.
Where I work
The practice is at Torrevecchia Teatina in the province of Chieti, and the ordinary working radius covers the provinces of Chieti and Pescara, both within a same-day site visit.
Locations beyond the provinces of Chieti and Pescara are taken on by prior arrangement, with travel and timing agreed before the engagement. If the comune you are looking at is not listed, ask: the list is indicative, not a boundary.
Frequently asked
Yes. The codice fiscale is the Italian tax code, and you cannot sign the deed, open utility accounts or pay the purchase taxes without one. It is issued free by the Agenzia delle Entrate, or from abroad by the Italian consulate for your area. Apply early: the notary cannot complete without it, and it is the item that most often arrives late.
Not for the technical check: I attend the property and the report reaches you in writing wherever you are. For completion, attendance is the norm, but Italian law allows you to grant a specific power of attorney to someone you trust. The form, wording and any legalisation or apostille are the notary's territory, and the notary needs to be involved weeks ahead, not on the day.
A geometra is a separately regulated Italian professional, with their own register, their own training route and a scope of practice defined by statute. A civil engineer is entered on the Ordine degli Ingegneri, as I am at Chieti in Section A, civil and environmental sector. The two scopes overlap on building and cadastral filings and diverge elsewhere, particularly on structural calculation.
For a purchase, one thing matters more than the label: that the professional is engaged by you, and that the engagement states in writing what is checked and what is not.
A professional answers to whoever engages them. That is not a criticism of the technicians who work with agencies, many of whom do careful work; it is a point about who holds the instruction and who carries the liability. If you commission and pay for the report, the conclusions are addressed to you, including the conclusions that end the sale. Always ask who instructs and who receives the signed document.
An abuso edilizio is an unauthorised building work, and it attaches to the property, so after completion it attaches to you even though a previous owner carried it out. Consequences range from a financial penalty to an order to restore the original state, and a non-compliant property is harder to resell or to mortgage. Some cases can be regularised where the legal conditions are met and some cannot; the difference is established by examining the permits against the building, never in advance.
Usually one to three months pass. In that window the lender finalises the mortgage, the notary checks the chain of title and any adverse registrations, and the seller assembles the required documents and carries out whatever the preliminary contract obliged them to put right.
It is also the last usable window for correcting a cadastral plan or filing an application, because by completion the declarations in the deed have to be true already.
Next step
Send the address or the listing link, whatever documents the agent has already given you, and the date by which you have to decide. I will reply with what can be checked, how long it takes and what document you receive. If the case needs a professional other than me, I will say so.
