Tari unpaid by the tenant can be deducted from the security deposit

The payment of the Tari is the responsibility of the landlord of the property that resides there. Article 643 of the 2014 Stability Law states that if the lease exceeds six months, the responsibility for payment of the Tari passes to the tenant; if it lasts less than six months, the responsibility for payment of the Tari falls on the owner.

Having ascertained that the party liable for payment, in the case of long leases, is the tenant, the question is whether the landlord who has advanced the amount may retain it from the security deposit (Article 11 of Law 392/1978), which serves as a guarantee for the fulfilment of all contractual obligations and primarily protects the landlord from possible damage caused to the property by the tenant and for the economic loss derived from the failure to pay the rents. In the absence of default and damages, the security deposit must be returned to the tenant in full.

The possibility of deducting from the security deposit the sum paid for the refuse tax was confirmed by the Court of Florence with sentence 87/2025, as this tax is due by the person who actually lives in the property, regardless of the contractual provisions, since it is he who produces it. With this reasoning, the court partially upheld the landlord's opposition to the injunction by which he had been ordered to return, in favour of the former tenant, part of the security deposit made in relation to a lease for residential use that had been duly terminated and that the landlord had withheld to cover expenses, according to him, not paid by the latter and pertaining to him.

In the course of the opposition proceedings, it was ascertained that certain claims of the opposing party in respect of the terminated lease relationship, which were contested by way of set-off against the counterclaim of the creditor consisting of the sum paid by way of security deposit, were to be considered unfounded as it was found that certain expenses had been paid by the tenant (expenses for the registration of the contract, expenses for the registration of the advance withdrawal) and others were not due because they were not provided for in the contract (cleaning of the property) or because they were not documented (expenses for the maintenance of the air conditioning system).

However, it was found that the payment of the Tari for the period of the tenant's stay in the building had been made by the landlord and, therefore, this expense could be deducted from the deposit as the tax was owed by the tenant. For these reasons, the Court partially upheld the landlord's objection and revoked the order and ordered the landlord to return the security deposit net of the amount of the Tari.