Every property has a price, a location, a style. Few have a clear answer to the question: is it insurable?
An insurer doesn’t just assess the likelihood of an accident, it assesses the likelihood that a claim will actually be paid out. Two factors drive this assessment:
Civil liability
(Art. 2051 of the Italian Civil Code holds the owner liable for damage caused by the property in their custody, even without direct fault)
and, in more serious cases, criminal liability
(negligent injury, Art. 590 of the Criminal Code, or negligent homicide, Art. 589 of the Criminal Code), if an injury or death can be traced back to a condition, faulty electrical wiring, a structural defect, that was never checked. Case law treats the absence of habitability as evidence supporting a finding of negligence, precisely because it shows the property’s safety was never independently verified.
A property without habitability carries this double exposure: an insurer that may refuse or limit coverage, and an owner who is harder to defend in the event of an accident. Insurance can compensate the victim within the policy’s limits, but it cannot protect the owner from criminal consequences, and gross-negligence clauses can void coverage exactly when it’s needed most.
The good news: it can be fixed.
Bringing a property into compliance comes down to one clear step, hiring a qualified technical professional (engineer or geometra) to verify it against current regulations on hygiene, health, and safety. If the property is already urbanistically compliant, the certification follows a standard administrative process. If it isn’t, the same professional pinpoints exactly what’s missing and which interventions are needed to close the gap. Either way, it’s a defined path, not a dead end.
If you’re selling, resolving this before listing removes the buyer’s technical advisor’s main leverage for negotiating the price. If you’re buying, check the habitability status, and if it’s missing, that’s a reason to bring in a technical professional to assess whether it can be regularized, not a reason to walk away from the purchase.
FAQ
How long does it take to get habitability?
If the property is already compliant, it’s a zero-day process in practical terms, since it’s a certification for which the technical professional takes responsibility, you just need the time to prepare it: the technical inspection and gathering the documentation. The Comune generally has 30 days to respond once the application is filed, and silent consent applies. If remediation work is needed first, timelines extend accordingly.
What happens if the irregularity can’t be resolved?
This is a rare case, but it does happen, usually when the property sits in a protected zone or the deviation exceeds what current regulations allow. Even then, there are usually options: regularizing the parts that can be brought into compliance, adjusting the use or layout of the spaces to what’s approvable, or, when nothing can be regularized, setting the price and disclosing the limitation transparently rather than letting it surface later. A technical professional’s assessment clarifies exactly where things stand, and it’s always better to know before the sale than after.