Introduction
With Resolution No. 1409/2025, the Municipal Board of Milan addresses an issue of significant practical relevance for operators and developers: the management of building works already completed or currently in progress under building titles that have been duly issued, but implicated in criminal proceedings for alleged building offences.
In Brief
In line with the case law of the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation, the Resolution introduces a mechanism for the ex-post verification of the urban-planning compliance of building works.
This instrument allows the Municipality to acknowledge the substantive legitimacy of works already completed or ongoing, without amounting to an amnesty in the technical sense – an option unavailable in cases of unlawful subdivision – but providing legal certainty to private parties and to the administration.
The verification is formalized through a municipal measure certifying ex-post the urban-planning compliance of the intervention.
Scope of Application
The ex-post verification applies where:
i) the intervention has been completed or is ongoing on the basis of a building title formally valid and effective;
ii) both the title and the intervention are challenged by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and are the subject of a pending criminal proceeding.
Purpose
Although it does not extinguish the building offence, the ex-post compliance measure may prevent the criminal judge from ordering the demolition or acquisition of the property which the Municipality has deemed compliant with the applicable planning framework.
Practical Operation
Once the ex post verification procedure has been initiated upon request of the interested parties, the Municipality proceeds as follows:
- it verifies the compliance of the works with the criteria set out in DGC No. 552/2025 and subsequent determinations, preserving the evidence already acquired;
- it may supplement the existing administrative file where necessary;
- in qualifying the nature of the building works, it takes into account Council of State Judgment No. 8542/2025 (For further analysis, see the related news item here: Council of State: the “continuity” between the demolished building and the reconstructed one marks the boundary between building refurbishment and new construction – SI – Studio Inzaghi);
- it may request the payment of any outstanding amounts, where sums due under the indirect title (e.g. standard monetization, different incidence of charges) exceed those already paid under the direct title.
Below the link to the full text for consultation.