Cassation

First home relief also with bare ownership

Benefit saved even with the change of use of the pre-possessed house. Cadastral merger of two property units irrelevant to tax benefit

by Angelo Busani

24 September 2025

3' min read

Key points

Change of use of pre-possessed house
Cadastral merger irrelevant for the purchase of contiguous dwellings

3' min read

A taxpayer who, before the lapse of five years from the date of the preferential purchase, donates the right of usufruct on the dwelling purchased with the tax benefit, reserving for himself the corresponding right of nude ownership, does not forfeit the first home tax relief.

This was decided by the Supreme Court of Cassation in its order 25863 of 22 September 2025, with the argument that first home tax relief also applies to the purchase of the right of bare ownership, since, in the latter case, there is a case of "equal aptitude" (with respect to the purchase of the right of full ownership) "to integrate a housing project deserving of facilitated treatment".

Therefore, when the law imposes the forfeiture of the tax relief in the event that the taxpayer sells the house benefiting from the tax relief before the five years from its purchase, it is a regulation that must be applied only to the alienation of the right of ownership and not in the case of the establishment of the right of usufruct on the house purchased with the tax benefit for less than five years, inasmuch as the taxpayer does not, in that case, lose ownership, but only deprives himself - for a given period - of the right of direct use of the property, which is temporarily deferred.

Change of use of pre-possessed house

A taxpayer who has already purchased a house in the past with the same benefit, but has changed the use of the previously purchased house from a dwelling to an office (which he still owned at the time of the purchase of the new house) and has registered this change of use with the Land Registry, may once again benefit from the first home relief.

This is what the Supreme Court affirmed in its Order 25868 of 22 September 2025 in a case in which, in the course of the judgement on the merits, the consideration that the change of destination had been registered in the Catasto just three days before the new subsidised purchase had weighed heavily.

However, the Supreme Court does not attach any importance to this aspect: the fact that the data cadastral change took place in the imminence of the new purchase is not relevant, since the coincidence between the change of destination and the purchase of another dwelling is not sufficient in itself to be able to affirm the taxpayer's bad faith. On the contrary, according to the court of legitimacy, this circumstance may also be considered in the sense that the taxpayer may have intended to adapt the cadastral datum to the factual (non-dwelling) destination of the pre-possessed property, which had already been in existence for some time.

Cadastral merger irrelevant for purchase of contiguous dwellings

The first home allowance is also available for the simultaneous or subsequent purchase of two different residential units if they are units which, being contiguous, are then amalgamated within a three-year period, even if at the expiry of that period the amalgamation has not yet been registered in the Land Registry.

This is the decision of the Supreme Court of Cassation in its order 25866 of 22 September 2025, in which it takes stock of the prerequisites that must be met when one intends to benefit from the first home allowance for the purchase (with a single deed or with a plurality of deeds, contemporaneous or subsequent) of a multiplicity of residential units. To achieve this it is first of all necessary that the amalgamation is carried out within three years from the date of registration of the simultaneous or last deed of purchase (this is the same term granted by law to the Revenue Agency to verify the amalgamation).

The unification must result in a residential property unit censured in the Land Registry in a category other than the 'luxury' categories (A/1, A/8 and A/9); proof of the amalgamation is the taxpayer's responsibility. On the other hand, it is irrelevant that within the three-year period the amalgamation of the separately purchased property units also appears in the Land Registry because the registration of the property units is a formal requirement not required by the facilitating law, whereas what matters is the actual creation of a single dwelling resulting from the amalgamation of a plurality of property units.