Building abusiveness is one of the most discussed plagues in the urban planning, with implications ranging from structural safety to the protection of the landscape. The recent sentence of the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) of Lazio n. 2531/2025 reiterated a key principle: time does not make an abusive work legitimate.

The case in question concerns a building intervention carried out without authorization in Rome, for which the municipal administration ordered the demolition. The owners contested the measure, appealing to the time spent by the construction of the work and the risk that the demolition could compromise the stability of the building.

Is there a term beyond which a building abuse can be considered “accepted”?

The specific case

The ruling of the Lazio TAR n. 2531/2025 concerns a case of building abuse relating to a property located in Rome, in which a Masonry expansion of about 6 square meters, intended for toilet. The work was built in the Court of the exclusive relevance of an apartment on the ground floor, without the release of an authorized building title.

Following checks carried out by the Technical Offices of the Town Hall, the Municipality issued a demolition order, imposing to the owners the removal of the work within 60 days. This provision is part of the building regulation which prohibits the realization of interventions without regular authorization, to protect urban planning legality.

The owners of the property have appealed to the TAR to contest the demolition order, based on two main arguments:

  1. The legitimate custody – According to the applicants, the repressive intervention of the Municipality took place a Many years from the realization of the work. This, in their opinion, should have implored a tacit recognition of the legitimacy of the intervention or at least would have required a strengthened motivation by the administration to justify such a drastic measure.

  2. Structural safety – Through a part technical report, the applicants have shown that the demolition of the expansion could compromise the stability of the entire building. Consequently, they argued that the demolition order was disproportionate to the actual gravity of the abuse and that the administration should have considered less invasive alternative solutions.

The TAR, however, rejected the appeal, confirming the legitimacy of the municipal provision. But what were the reasons behind this decision?

The motivations of the Lazio Tar

The Regional Administrative Court rejected the appeal, reiterating some fundamental principles on building regulations. The decision is based on a consolidated jurisprudential orientation, according to which The simple course of the time cannot in any way legitimize an abusive work. In other words, the fact that a building intervention was carried out years before without the administration intervened does not generate any right to maintaining the work.

According to the TAR, the time spent not only does not legitimize the abusive intervention, but indeed strengthens the obligation of the administration to intervene. This is because the building offense has a nature permanentwhich means that its irregularity is renewed every day.

Consequently, the local authority maintains the power to sanction abuse at any time, without the need to provide specific motivation on the timing of the repressive intervention.

Another relevant aspect concerns the power of the municipal administration to issue a demolition order without having to demonstrate the existence of a concrete and current public interest in removing the abuse. The TAR clarified that the restoration of building legality constitutes in itself an ever -current public interest, regardless of the time spent by the realization of the work.

Finally, as regards the risk of compromise of the static nature of the building, the TAR considered that the technical report presented by the applicants was not sufficient to justify the cancellation of the demolition order. The Municipality, in fact, has adequately motivated its provision, believing that the restoration of the original state of the property would not have led to any significant structural risk.

Consequences of the sentence and implications for citizens

The decision of the Lazio TAR n. 2531/2025 has important implications for the owners of real estate and for anyone who has carried out building interventions without authorization. The first key point that emerges from the sentence is that There is no term beyond which a building abuse can be considered accepted or tacitly remedied. Even many years later, the administration can order the demolition of the illegal work without the need to provide further justifications.

This principle affects directly on those who have carried out extensions, verandas, roofs or other structural interventions without the necessary building title. If the work is illegal and has never been remedied through a amnesty or a amnesty, the risk of a demolition remains always current.

Another relevant aspect concerns the possibility of amnesty. There are cases in which a building abuse can be regularized, but this is possible only if the work respects the urban planning rules and landscape constraints in force at the time of the request for amnesty. If the intervention does not comply with the legislation, there is no possibility of regularization, and the only option remains demolition.

The sentence also clarifies that the structural safety cannot be used as a topic to avoid demolition. If the illegal work puts the stability of the building at risk, it is the task of the owner to adopt adequate measures to guarantee safety, but this does not exempt from the obligation to remove the abuse.

In summary, this decision strengthens the principle according to which urban planning legality must always be respected and that abusive interventions cannot acquire legitimacy only because they were unnoticed for years.