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Risk-free purchasing for the 270,000 goods donated each year

As of 18 December, the restitution action is abolished: it becomes possible to transfer assets without fear of actions for protection of legitimate rights

by Angelo Busani

2 January 2026

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The donation of movable and immovable property is no longer restricted by the traditional consideration (derived from rules that had been contained in the Civil Code since 1942) that a donation resulted in a considerable limitation on the subsequentsale of the donated property. No one bought them willingly and the banks did not accept them as the subject of a mortgage because they could have been involved in the litigation that the heirs of the donor - complaining of the infringement of their rightful share - could have brought against the donee.

Perhaps this is also why in recent years in Italy free deeds of transfer have always been under 300,000, with a slight drop to 270,000 in 2023. In this last year, donations of full ownership amounted to approximately 121 thousand, to which 36,600 gratuitous transfers of bare ownership should be added; the rest is divided between money and other gratuitous deeds (the source is the telematic registrations taken over by the Finances).

Now the picture changes. Article 44 of theLaw 182/2025 abolished the so-called return action, i.e. the action that could be brought by anyone who had acquired from the donee the property donated to him. The action could be brought by an heir of the donor/de cuius (who was one of his legitimaries: in essence, the donor's spouse and children) to recover the donated asset if the donation had caused the legitimate heir's share of the estate to be damaged.

What changes in practice

Let us take the example of a person who dies without a will with an estate of 120, leaving his wife and two children as survivors. If this person had previously donated an asset worth 1,080 to a friend, the wife and children would inherit assets worth 40 each (120 : 3), but they would be entitled to a reserved share of 300 each, calculated using the following formula: (120 + 1,080) : 4 x 3 : 3.

In order to recover the total 900 missing to satisfy their legitimate share, the wife and children could have brought what is known as an action for reduction against the friend: the result would be that he could retain only that part of the value of the donation (the so-called 'available') that does not affect the heirs' legitimate share. In other words, the donation received by the friend is reduced by the amount needed to satisfy the heirs legitimated.

If, however, the friend's assets are not sufficient to satisfy the claims of the legitimators acting in reduction (for instance, if he is destitute or almost destitute), what happens?

Before law 182/2005, the wife and children could have brought an action for restitution against whomever had become the owner of the donated property (even if it had been a purchaser completely unaware that a donation had been made in the past): let us consider the case in which the friend had sold the donated property to Titius, who then sold it to Caius and the latter, in turn, sold it to Sempronius; an action for restitution could only be brought - and the donated property could circulate freely - if 20 years had elapsed since the donation and a deed of opposition to the donation had not been lodged, in which case this 20-year limitation did not apply and the action for restitution could be brought whatever the date on which the donation was made.

After Law 182, an action for restitution is no longer available: this means that if the donee is incapacitated, the heir acting to protect his or her inheritance share remains unsatisfied; in essence, he or she is a creditor who cannot obtain payment of his or her claim due to the fact that the debtor does not have sufficient assets to meet the creditor's claim.

There is one exception: if the donee has disposed free of charge of the property donated to him (in other words, he has donated it in turn), the recipient of the latter donation is obliged to satisfy 'in money' the claims of the legitimators who act in reduction against the incapacitated donee: even in this hypothesis, therefore, the circulation of the property that was donated by the de cuius causing the injury to the legitimacy is nevertheless preserved.

Since when does the news apply

Law 182 applies to donations madefrom 18 December 2025 onwards.

However, successions stipulated before also benefit from the new law, in the sense that an action for restitution will no longer be available for them either, with the exception of the following cases (in which such an action may continue to be brought):

1) a request for reduction has already been served and transcribed before 18 December 2025;
2) a request for reduction is served and transcribed before 18 June 2026;
3) an extrajudicial deed of objection to the donation has already been served and transcribed against the donee and his successors in title before 18 December 2025 or is served and transcribed before 18 June 2026.

As already mentioned above, the deed of opposition to the donation was, in the system prior to Law 182, the deed - made during the donor's lifetime - with which the donor's legitimator, fearing that a donation made by the donor would later prove to be detrimental to the donor's legitimacy (once the donor had died), prevented the twenty-year period from expiring after which the action for restitution could no longer be brought (pursuant to the previous article 563, last paragraph). The opposition notice now therefore survives for six months, in order to allow, for donations made before 18 December 2025 only, the availability of an action for restitution.

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