Twenty million to renew the barrier bonus

Confirmation of the 75% architectural barriers bonus for three years, until 2028, and with a few adjustments, such as the division into five instalments (and no longer ten). Confassociazioni, through the National Condominium Body, has proposed an amendment to the Budget Law to return to facilitating architectural barrier abatement works, in the aftermath of the stop to the 75% bonus expiring on 31 December this year. From next January, these works will return to being incentivised with the ordinary instruments: 50% for main dwellings and 36% for others.

The hypothesis put forward by Confassociazioni, costing slightly more than 20 million euro, is to add to the Budget Bill Article 9-bis that provides for the renewal of the deduction in existing buildings, with a validity period from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2028. Thus, there would be a long extension of three years, giving a stable framework to this incentive. As pointed out by the president of Confassociazioni, Angelo Deiana, and the president of the condominium organisation, Federica De Pasquale, during their hearing in the Senate, "this is a social bonus that must be usable by everyone to encourage accessibility in all private buildings. In the case of condominiums, as was the case with the previous bonus, there are also plans to facilitate assembly resolutions, giving greater support to incapacitated condominium owners and reinstating instruments such as credit assignment, because these are frail and elderly people even if they are not disabled'.

The proposal envisages, in detail, a 75 per cent deduction for the construction of ramps, elevators, stair lifts, with the addition of interphones and mailboxes, previously not covered by the law. The expenditure limits of the proposal are identical to the current ones: up to EUR 50,000 for single-family buildings or detached units, in buildings of 2 to 8 units up to EUR 40,000 per building unit, and finally, in larger buildings, over 8 units, the deduction is up to EUR 30,000 per unit. For condominium works, the facilitated deliberative quorum is confirmed, providing for the go-ahead with the majority of the participants in the assembly representing at least one third of the millesimal value of the building.

The extension has the support of Recert - Certified Condominium Auditors, the National Association of Elevator Construction and Maintenance Companies, Anacam, as well as Fiaba Ets, the Italian Architectural Barrier Abatement Fund. From Stefano Maiandi, Fiaba's national president, came a heartfelt plea to avoid penalising 'citizens forced to live imprisoned in their homes without the possibility of independent movement in a nation that has always fewer births and increasingly elderly people'.