Parliament under pressure on ghost properties

The amendment to the manoeuvre that launches a new operationagainst 'ghost houses" is expected to be voted on by senators this week. The text instructs the Inland Revenue to carry out the 'monitoring of the territory in order to massively identify buildings that are not declared at the Land Registry'. According to estimates circulated in recent days, there could emerge approximately 4 million irregular situations out of the total real estate stock.

Signed by five senators from Fratelli d'Italia (Gelmetti, Ambrogio, Nocco, Russo, Mennuni), the amendment expressly aims to implement the 1.12 reform of the NRP (Tax Administration Reform).

The old edition of the campaign against ghost houses had focused on the comparison between aerial images and cadastral maps. This time 'modern digital photo-interpretation technologies' are expressly mentioned, which should reduce the risk of 'false positives' and complement technical-administrative verifications, remote sensing and inspections.

The procedure envisaged by the amendment is typical of the compliance letters. The Agency will send a notice to the cadastral holders of the properties on which the irregularities are found (it is likely that portions of the building will also be detected). Taxpayers will be able to defend themselves by presenting 'elements, facts and circumstances' not known to the tax authorities. Otherwise, they will be required to update the cadastral register through the Docfa procedure.

The interested parties - who should by now have consulted a technician - will have seven months from the notification to update the cadastre. If they fail to do so, the Inland Revenue will attribute a presumed annuity to the units and make a schematic map representation cwith charges, taxes and penalties to be paid by those in default. The annuity will be determined startingfrom the highest valuation rate of the census area in which the building is located (Group A rate for houses and Group C for non-residential buildings). Specific procedures are also envisaged for the publication-notification in the Official Gazette of the lists of municipalities where there are buildings for which the owner cannot be identified.