Luxury houses (no longer): how to update the cadastre and cut the Imu cost

The Piedmont CGT endorsed the downgrading from A/1 to A/2 for a dwelling in a semi-central area in Turin, in a 1950s condominium now lacking any valuable features (no garden, no garage and no doorman, with a poor energy class and a lift not compliant for the disabled). As Rocco Curto, the taxpayer's consultant in the Turin case and formerly professor of Estimate at the Polytechnic University of Turin, observes, "the ruling highlights a structural element: cadastral rents no longer describe the economic and social evolution of territories and produce significant distortions. These are not sporadic anomalies, but the effect of the inertia of the cadastre and the transformation of real estate markets in recent decades'.

The problem is that the cadastre does not 'reason' by market values. By law (Rdl 652/1939) holders of real rights are obliged to update in the cadastre units that have undergone 'changes in the state of affairs' (changes of use, room distribution, divisions, mergers, etc.). However, the data and annuity indicated by the taxpayer with the Docfa procedure - including the change to a lower category - are always 'proposed'. And the Inland Revenue recalls that the office may determine the final annuity even without an inspection, by means of a technical estimate carried out "by comparing the objective characteristics - e.g. constructive, typological, plant engineering - of the property under examination with those of other properties located in the same territorial context".

How should one proceed, then? 'The taxpayers concerned,' explains Ernesto Baragetti, national councillor of surveyors with delegated responsibility for the cadastre, 'must assess the situation with a technician, bearing in mind that it is not the old age of the building that matters, but the characteristics that determined its initial registration. It is to the change of those intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics, also in relation to the other units of the building and the surrounding urban context, that one must look in order to propose a new attribution of category".

Florence and Genoa, capitals with almost 3,000 A/1 homes, are emblematic cases. "Many houses that were stately at the time they were built have since lost these characteristics, also due to development of the area, for example in Sampierdarena, in Via Cantore, and in Cornigliano," comments Vincenzo Nasini, president of Ape Confedilizia Genova. The association has been fighting for a general revision for some time: "We have asked various municipal administrations to take the initiative to systematically revise the classifications," says Nasini, "but cash reasons have always prevailed. Many owners took action individually and almost all ended up in litigation: they often won, but at their own cost'.

In the Tuscan capital, as the president of Confedilizia Firenze, Gianfranco Ghilardi, recounts, 'we have long reported the issue to the municipality, which has taken up our requests and we are in the process of establishing a dialogue to assess feasible solutions for the revision of the reference parameters, which should be updated. The municipality has sponsored the launch of a technical table'. Here, too, it is the evolution of the urban fabric that is forcing the adjustment: 'These are in particular properties built before the 1980s,' Ghilardi continues, 'concentrated in central or neighbouring areas that cannot benefit from the concessions granted to the lower categories, such as the on the purchase of the "first home" or the Imu exemption on the main house.