Superbonus, easy release for dormant Cilas

Easy awakening for dormant Cilas. The Tax Court of First Instance of Modena (judgement 86/2026) has recently handed down a ruling that sets an important precedent for condominiums who, in the most difficult season of the superbonus, i.e. when the decrees blocking the collection of credits were issued, accelerated procedures to the maximum in order to meet all the deadlines set by law and not to give up the benefits. According to the judges, in fact, any payment, with no limit on the amount, was sufficient to meet the deadline of 30 March 2024 and not lose the possibility of assigning the credits.

In this regard, it must be remembered that between 2023 and 2024, the government had to deal with the problem of dormant Cilas. These were thousands of notices, relating to the superbonus, submitted before the decrees blocking the disposals, which had not been immediately followed by a construction site. Over the months, these Cilas had kept up the number of cessions of credits, despite the executive's stops, because the blocks did not apply to them. Thus, with Decree 39/2024, the executive activated a clause to depower the dormant Cilas and put a block on assignments: those for which no expenditure, documented by invoice, had been incurred on 30 March 2024 for work already carried out, became de facto waste paper.

It is precisely the application of this clause, the subject of numerous interpretations in the following months, that is at the centre of the ruling by the Cgt of Modena. The condominium plaintiff (defended by lawyer Umberto Iannarilli) had its credit assignment blocked precisely because of its failure to comply with the clause of Decree 39/2024. A contested blockage, because the building had resolved the works on 3 May 2022, deposited the Cilas on 25 November 2022, started the building site on 3 March 2023 and paid the first invoice (for the part not covered by the discount) on 29 March 2024: therefore, within the terms. A long journey that, probably, many other apartment blocks experienced in a similar way at that stage.

The Cgt of Modena now recalls that "the documentation produced by the plaintiff shows that an invoice was issued on 28 March 2024 for a total amount of Euro 2,000, of which a portion (70%) was discounted on the invoice and a portion (30%) paid by means of atransfer on 29 March 2024 for work on the staking of the plaster for the subsequent realisation of the thermal coat and the replacement of the roofing sheathing". These fulfilments, according to the judges, are sufficient to comply with the stakes of Decree 39. The reason is that the regulation - says the ruling - 'does not require predetermined work progress stages nor minimum expenditure amounts'.

In confirmation of this, the CGT recalls the illustrative report of the decree, which explained how 'the regulatory intervention was aimed at protecting the expectations and legitimate reliance of principals who had already completed building practices, started building sites and works and incurred costs, by introducing objective criteria of proof'. And these were, precisely, the invoice and payment by a certain date. In this case, it is 'documentally proven' that by 30 March 2024, 'real, permanent and functionally connected building works to the facilitated intervention had already been carried out, as attested by a plurality of official technical deeds, drawn up and signed by the construction management under its own responsibility'.