Buying your first home is a crucial step for many Italian families, made more accessible thanks to significant tax breaks. However, the use of these benefits is strictly linked to compliance with certain conditions, including the completion of works for properties under construction within three years of registration of the deed.
A recent ruling has clarified the impossibility of applying the suspensions introduced during the pandemic to this specific deadline.
How do these rules affect taxpayers? And what are the legal implications?
Advertisement – Advertising
The case: the disputed facts
The matter concerns a taxpayer who had purchased a property under construction on 29 April 2019, benefiting from the “first home” tax breaks. To maintain the benefit, it was necessary to complete the construction work within three yearsi from the registration of the deed. However, the property had not been completed within the expected deadline, and the Revenue Agency had issued two liquidation notices for the recovery of ordinary taxes.
The taxpayer had contested these notices, arguing that the operational difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had justified the delay and that the emergency regulations, introduced in 2020, would also have suspended the deadline for completing the works.
In particular, the appellant believed that the three-year deadline had been extended by virtue of the provisions of Legislative Decree no. 23/2020, which had foreseen the suspension of some deadlines linked to the “first home” benefit.
Advertisement – Advertising
The ruling of the Tax Court of Campania
With sentence no. 2228/2024, the Second Instance Tax Court of Justice of Campania rejected the taxpayer’s arguments, confirming the legitimacy of the payment notices issued by the Revenue Agency.
The Court established that the three-year deadline for completing the works on properties under construction, foreseen to maintain the “first home” benefit, is not among those suspended from article 24 of Legislative Decree no. 23/2020.
The judging panel reiterated that the emergency legislation was applicable only to some specific terms, such as transfer of residence or purchase of a new home within one year of the sale of a previously subsidized property. On the other hand, the deadline relating to the completion of the construction works was not covered by the law, as already clarified by the Revenue Agency circulars (n. 9/E of 2020 and n. 8/E of 2022).
The Court also underlined that the facilitative rules, being of an exceptional nature, must be interpreted restrictively and cannot be extended to cases not expressly provided for.
This ruling is part of a consolidated jurisprudential context, which sees other rulings confirming the absence of an extension of the three-year deadline for completing the works, even during the pandemic.
Advertisement – Advertising
The reasons for the Tax Court’s decision
The Tax Court of Campania justified its decision based on the principle according to which the rules of a facilitative nature must be applied with strict observance of their scope of application.
In particular, article 24 of Legislative Decree no. 23/2020, issued during the pandemic emergency, established the suspension of some terms relating to “first home” benefits, but did not include the three-year deadline for completing the construction works. This was confirmed both by the Explanatory Report to the law, which specified the scope of application of the suspension, and by the Revenue Agency circulars which delimited its meaning.
The Court also highlighted that the legislator, despite having the possibility to intervene more broadly during the pandemic, had chosen not to extend the suspension to the three-year period, considering this provision not essential to deal with the extraordinary difficulties of the period.
Consolidated jurisprudence also intervened to strengthen this position, reiterating that extraordinary rules cannot be applied to cases not expressly provided for by the legislator. The Court therefore applied an interpretation strictly in line with the regulatory text and the indications already provided by the Revenue Agency.
