Save home, curb on pergotents: their installation is not always free
The Supreme Court confirms the conviction for building abuse of an owner who had tried to cover his terrace with this system
3' min read
3' min read
Creating averanda with a pergotenda is not an activity that can be carried out under free building law, i.e. without authorisations. Instead, it is necessary to apply for permits from the municipality in order not to expose oneself, in the worst case scenario, to the crime ofbuilding abuse. This is what the Court of Cassation explains in its ruling 29638/2025, published yesterday.
The indications carry considerable weight because they touch on a subject that the Save Home has tried to simplify by including this type of artefacts in the free building lists. Despite the legal definitions and attempts at clarification, then, the installation of these products often remains at the centre of disputes in condominiums. This confirms the tendency that these types of normative indications often have: to end up being swept away by jurisprudence, as had also happened to the single glossary of free building.
The affair
.Returning to the judgement, the charge concerns the offence of building abuse for the construction of a 'pergotenda', equipped with a plastic sliding system, placed on a terrace in a historic town centre: the structure was built in violation of the local building regulations. The pergotenda - it should be remembered - is a roofing system consisting of a fixed part, the structure, and a mobile part, the roof. The installation of these products was simplified by the save home decree, which explicitly qualified it as a free building activity, albeit with a very articulate definition.
For this reason, the appeal against the first conviction for building abuse argued that the installation of a pergotenda is not comparable to the construction of averanda, because it does not close the terrace on all sides. Moreover, this type of artefact would 'fall under the free building regime' of the Salva casa (Decree Law 69/2024) under which no needed-permits "works for protection from the sun and weather whose main structure consists of awnings, awnings, outdoor blinds, pergola awnings, also bioclimatic, with retractable canvas, also waterproof, or with mobile or adjustable solar protection elements, and which is leaning against or attached to buildings or building units, also with fixed structures necessary for the support and extension of the work".
The position of the Supreme Court
.The Court of Cassation, however, reasons differently and adopts a restrictive interpretation of the regulations, qualifying the operation as the closing of a veranda. According to the judges, in fact, the notion of pergotenda does not include "light constructions, implying the creation of an enclosed space capable of determining the urban-building transformation of the territory and subject, as such, to an authorisation regime". Even the definitions of the Salva casa, in fact, leave certain stakes intact. For example, the awning must only protect from the sun, must not lead to the creation of enclosed spaces and must have minimal visual impact.
