Property

Milan enquiry, few remedies for home buyers: sureties, terminations and compensation

For citizens, there is a risk of never taking delivery of properties for which substantial advances have been paid

by Giuseppe Latour

19 July 2025

3' min read

Key points

Purchasers
Non-delivery of houses
Company chaos
Sureties
The Demolition Spectrum

3' min read

Indemnities, resolutions, sureties. The Milanese chaos, which in these days is having the umpteenth episode in its long judicial affair, is also putting a strain on the legal remedies available to citizens who have bought a house in Lombardy's capital and have been waiting for it for years. With one caveat: in a market that is growing at a furious pace, many of the buyers today would like nothing more than the delivery of properties that, with updated prices, would cost much more. A handover that appears, however, to be increasingly difficult.

Promising purchasers

The most frequent problem is that of the so-called 'promissory purchasers', i.e. those who have signed a preliminary purchase agreement, paying a very substantial down payment, and are now faced with a stalled construction site or which, in any case, is not progressing at the promised speed.

Bringing order to the scenarios and possible remedies is Raffaello Stendardi, lawyer and consultant of Assoedilizia, the Milanese association of building owners. He explains, first of all, how delays 'lead to the payment of penalties according to what is established in the contracts; this is a first consequence of what is happening in Milan'.

Companies, in short, will have to shell out sums, going even further in some cases: 'It could happen that someone proposes tocompensate buyers more substantially, to compensate them for the delay.

The non-delivery of houses

In this scenario, we do not arrive at the most problematic hypotheses, those in which the property is not delivered or the contract is terminated earlier. One must consider that, in many cases, we are talking about families who need to live in these properties and have no possibility of waiting indefinitely; beyond a certain limit, delays will not be bearable.

According to the Civil Code, then, the purchaser can ask to resolve the contract or ask for a price reduction if the property has defects: 'The seller,' says Stendardi, 'must guarantee that the thing sold is free from defects that make it unfit for use or diminish its value. In the case of theinvestigations of the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office it is possible that this happens and that, therefore, the contracts are terminated'.

The chaos of business

At this point, however, we must open a parenthesis on the companies, which are also experiencing a dramatic situation. Requests for penalties, indemnities and the possible termination of contracts already signed inevitably result in a very strong financial strain on the construction companies, especially the less structured ones. It could, therefore, happen that, to complicate the situation even further, there are also their bankruptcies.

Sureties

There is another remedy, that of guarantee policies. Taking out a surety policy for real estate to be built is mandatory. It is requested from banks and insurance companies by construction companies and given to the buyer of the property. It serves as a guarantee for the buyer, to enable him to recover the sums paid in the event that the builder finds himself in a difficult situation, for example because he goes bankrupt: "This policy serves precisely to cover the sums already paid and certainly some buyers will try to activate it. It will have to be checked whether banks and insurance companies will raise objections to its use, and they will be able to use it again," says Stendardi.

The spectre of demolition

But it does not end there. Because there may also be problems for those who have already taken possession of their property and signed a deed. In the wake of the investigations, in fact, the titles that legitimised the property could even be annulled, making it abusive. "This is an extreme case, because we are dealing with buildings that have been authorised by the municipality and have also been built in the meantime. Moreover, in this situation, one could go so far as to demand compensation from the municipality itself, as well as the termination of the contracts signed with the construction companies. I think it is more likely that the Milan City Council will, however, give possibilities of amnesty,' the lawyer concludes.

Giuseppe LatourRedattore
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Luogo: Milano
Lingue parlate: Inglese
Argomenti: appalti, casa, edilizia, professioni
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