Legitimate state of forgiven properties: when expansions are possible

The line of the Council of State, the amnesty involves the legitimate state

The Council of State with sentence 2848/2026 (which we talked about in this article) clarified that the issuance of the title in extraordinary amnesty extinguishes the offense and qualifies the forgiven property as fully legitimate without suffering penalties compared to an originally compliant building. As regards subsequent building interventions, it is therefore established that not only maintenance interventions necessary to keep the existing property in good condition are permitted, but also renovation works in the broad sense, including demolition and reconstruction.

In the ruling, however, the Council of State addressed the case of a municipality that had blocked the renovation works, even if these did not include any increase in volume. In the maxim, the section underlines that the issuance of the title in amnesty, although constituting an exceptional case of law – in light of the general principle of the Italian and Euro-unitary legal system of legal certainty, which does not allow “grey” areas – must necessarily confer on the property full legal legitimacy from a building perspective, for the purposes of its enjoyment and legal trade that respect the needs of general public interest underlying the quality, safety and healthiness of the living and working environments, the right to housing and the economic well-being of the workers, local communities and the entire country.

However, there was therefore no general green light to the possibility of having increases in volume in general, as the case addressed supported an owner who had carried out renovation work “without an increase in volume or surface area”.

The border of the Consulta, no automatic mechanism for new volumes in derogation

For its part, the Constitutional Court, with Sentence no. 86/2026 (downloadable at the end of the article)examined the legitimacy of the Sardinian regional regulations (specifically art. 2-ter, paragraph 2, of Sardinia reg. law no. 23 of 1985, as introduced by reg. law no. 18 of 2025) aimed at limiting the volumetric increases in premiums on condoned buildings that are still in conflict with the current municipal urban planning.

The sentence essentially confirms that the maximum admissible intervention on the forgiven properties is renovation with demolition and subsequent reconstruction in compliance with current building and urban planning regulations. The Council specified that obtaining the building amnesty extinguishes the sanctions and legitimizes the permanence of the structure, but does not erase the potential original asymmetry between the property and the ordinary town plan.

The behavior of the local authority which refuses expansion interventions to the individual owner if the property is in conflict with the urban planning provisions has therefore been corrected. However, since demolition and reconstruction is permitted, once demolished and rebuilt in full compliance with current regulations, there is no longer a “condoned property”: there is a legitimately approved new building. At that point the restrictions of the amnesty cease to apply, and the local urban planning regulation returns to operate without filters, including the volumetric rewards or expansions that the municipal plan expressly allows in that area.

The exception of recovery plans and urban regeneration

But not only that. The Consulta also cites the intervention of the 2026 Budget Law on paragraph 10 of the art. 5 of Legislative Decree 70/2011. The change introduced included the forgiven properties among those that can benefit from the interventions provided for in paragraph 9 of the same article, i.e. those carried out under regional laws approved to encourage the rationalization of the building stock and urban regeneration, with the possibility of additional volume as a reward measure.

In this case the increase in volume does not respond to an automatic reward due to the individual illegal property, but rather to a sovereign choice of planning and redevelopment of the entire territory. It is the Municipality that, by redesigning the layout of an entire degraded urban quadrant, absorbs the original contrast of the forgiven property, inserting it into a new general design and legitimizing the transformative intervention on a collective scale.

Comparison between the two sentences

Here is a comparison table between the decision of the Constitutional Court (n. 86/2026, downloadable below) and that of the Council of State (n. 2848/2026):