By Judgment No. 2848/2026, the Council of State (Section IV) ruled on a case concerning the rejection of an application for retrospective planning permission relating to works carried out on a property that had previously been regularised through a building amnesty under Article 31 of Law No. 47/1985.
In particular, the Municipality had denied the application, arguing that the works constituted a new, unauthorised work and that, as the property had been regularised through an amnesty, it could only be subject to maintenance works.
Upholding the appeal, the Council of State set out the following principle of law:
“7.1 – First of all, although according to a consolidated but dated line of case law a property regularised through an amnesty may only be subject to maintenance works and not to new works, it is preferable to consider, on the basis of Article 9-bis, paragraph 1-bis, of Presidential Decree No. 380/2001, that a property which has been regularised acquires full planning law legitimacy and may be subject to the same types of works permitted for a lawfully authorised property, including building refurbishment. This is because the granting of retrospective authorisation, while constituting an exceptional statutory mechanism, must—having regard to the general principle of legal certainty under both Italian and EU law, which does not allow for ‘grey areas’ and has recently been recognised by the Constitutional Court as a constitutionally protected value, as well as in light of Articles 41 and 42 of the Constitution safeguarding economic initiative and property rights—necessarily confer full legal legitimacy on the property from a building law perspective, so as to ensure its use and transfer in compliance with the general public interest relating to the quality, safety and health of living and working environments, the right to housing and the economic well-being of workers, local communities and the country as a whole.”
In light of this principle, the Council of State—departing from the prevailing line of case law—held that a property previously subject to a building amnesty may also be subject to works qualifying as building refurbishment.
Th efull text of the sentence is available here.
The Firm remains available for any further clarification.