The Regional Administrative Court of Campania has recently expressed itself on a case of building abuse and illegal occupation of land in the municipality of Giugliano in Campania. The fulcrum of the question concerns a group of owners who have been delivered an order for demolition of illegal works made by third parties.
This affair highlights a legal issue of great importance: is it right to impose responsibility for the owners of demolishing works that have not achieved and that are the result of abusive employment? What are the limits of the municipal ordinances in these cases?
The TAR, with the sentence n ° 497 of 2025, gave a clear response, with a sentence destined to make jurisprudence. Let’s find out the details together.
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The case: illegal occupation and responsibility for demolition
The dispute was born when the Municipality of Giugliano in Campania, with an administrative order, imposed the demolition of illegal works made on some private land. The provision was aimed at both the subjects identified as responsible for building abuse and the legitimate owners of the land.
However, the latter not only had never built anything, but had found themselves in the impossibility of managing or accessing their properties due to an abusive occupation protracted for years.
Illegal occupation and environmental degradation
According to the documentation presented in court, a group of people had occupied the land without any authorizationtransforming them into an illegal residential area. The occupants had created numerous artifacts, including shacks, fortune toilets and precarious structures intended for home. This situation had led to a serious urban and environmental degradation, with obvious hygienic-sanitary problems.
The local health authorities had in fact reported the presence of waste, even dangerous, paid in the land and neighboring areas. The area was also free of adequate sewage discharges, with waste water dispersed in the ground. No less serious was the presence of illegal connections to the public electrical network, with exposed cables and dangerous systems.
The complaints of the owners and the inertia of the Municipality
The owners of the land, from the beginning of the employment, had filed numerous complaints to the competent authorities to solicit the eviction of the area. As early as 2019, reports had been filed with the police and the municipal administration, highlighting the health and environmental danger deriving from the abusive settlement.
In addition, the owners had attempted to take legal actions to renent the possession of their land, starting a criminal proceeding against the occupants. This had led to the identification of 59 subjects accused of invasion of land and buildings (art. 633 cp) and illegal waste management. However, despite the start of the judicial proceeding, the Municipality had not adopted effective measures to free the area.
In the face of this situation, the owners themselves had requested the Municipality to intervene for the eviction, but theadministration had ignored the instances. The paradox is that, after years of requests, the Municipality has instead decided to impose the demolition of illegal works precisely to the owners.
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The thesis of the Municipality: ordinance bound also for the owners
According to the municipal administration, the demolition ordinance was a due act and tied pursuant to art. 31 of Presidential Decree 380/2001, the consolidated text of construction. The Municipality argued that the urban legislation requires the demolition of the illegal works to anyone who owns the land on which they arise, regardless of those who have actually made them.
The local authority also argued that, despite the fact that the owners were not responsible for the abusive construction, they were still subject to the demolition order as they are the owners of the area. The municipal defense referred to administrative jurisprudence, according to which a demolition order can be legitimately issued against the owner of a property even if the latter did not participate directly in the construction of the building abuse.
In particular, the Municipality said that the owners, once the ordinance was received, could have taken action to perform the demolition as soon as the area had been freed by the occupants. He also argued that there was no real legal impossibility of fulfilling the order, since the occupants could hypothetically leave the land spontaneously, thus allowing the owners to demolish the illegal works.
A questionable reasoning
The position of the Administration, however, presents evident critical issues. The TAR has in fact noted that the area in question was not only illegally occupied, but it was completely inaccessible for the ownerswho had been stripped of the possession of the property. Furthermore, the Municipality was perfectly aware of this situation, so much so that it has been a part offended in the criminal proceedings started against illegal occupants.
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The opinion of the TAR: an obligation impossible to fulfill
The Regional Administrative Court of Campania, with the sentence n ° 497 of 2025, accepted the appeal of the owners believing that the demolition order was unrelated towards them. The main motivation of the sentence is based on a principle of fundamental law: An obligation to a person who does not have the material or legal possibility of fulfilling you cannot be imposed.
The TAR showed that the owners had activated themselves in all possible ways to regain possession of the land and get rid of illegal occupants. The actions taken included:
- Presentation of numerous complaints to the police authorities since 2019 to report abusive occupation;
- Request for intervention to the Municipality for the eviction of the area;
- Appeal to the civil courtobtaining a precautionary order that imposed the issue of land by the occupants;
- Start of a criminal proceedingwith 59 people indicted for abusive occupation and environmental violations.
However, despite these efforts, the situation had not changed: the occupants were yet present and the Municipality had never performed a forced eviction. In this scenario, the demolition order was foundingsince it presupposed the possibility, for the owners, to intervene on an area from which they had actually been illegally expropriated.
A more realistic interpretation of the law
The TAR clarified that art. 31 of the consolidated text of the construction, which governs the demolition of building abuses, it cannot be applied rigidly and indiscriminately. Normally, this article allows municipalities to impose demolition to any owner of an area on which abuse have been built. However, the rule is based on a fundamental prerequisite: that the owner has the control of the asset and is able to perform the order.
In the specific case, the TAR recognized that the owners they had no chance of fulfilling The ordinance, because the area was permanently occupied by third parties and the administration itself had not been able to restore legality.
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A fundamental principle: responsibility cannot fall on the innocent owners
The ruling of the Tar Campania has established a legal principle of great importance: You cannot impose an obligation to demolition to an owner who has lost possession of the asset against his will and has done everything possible to regain control of his property.
The Court stressed that the Municipality of Giugliano in Campania was fully aware of the fact that the owners not only they were not responsible for building abusesbut they were even part injured of an illegal employment that had led to the realization of the disputed works.
One of the most interesting aspects of the sentence concerns the concept of “Responsibility from position“. In other words, if the Tar had confirmed the municipal ordinance, he would have created a dangerous precedent in which any owner, even without control over his land, could have been automatically held responsible for building abuses made by third parties.
The Court, on the other hand, clarified that the urban legislation cannot be applied in such a rigid and unfair way. If the owner has done everything possible to avoid abuse – denouncing, activating himself in civil and criminal laws, trying to obtain the eviction – cannot be penalized for the fact of not being able to return to his land.
