Usi civici in Italy: how civic use rights can block a land purchase, and how buyers clear them

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Most of the time the problem can be priced and solved. Sometimes it cannot, because the land is not the seller’s to sell. This guide explains the difference, shows what redemption cost in real regional decisions, describes how Lazio, Abruzzo and Piedmont handle the procedure, and lists the documents to request before you sign anything. It is a practical screen, not legal advice; with civic uses you will need the notary, and often a lawyer who knows this field.

The vocabulary

The legal framework is Law 1766 of 16 June 1927 and its regulation, Royal Decree 332 of 26 February 1928, plus Law 168 of 20 November 2017 on collective domains. Administration sits with the regions; disputes over whether a right exists go to the Commissario, whose districts cover more than one region (one covers Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany).

Two situations that look alike and are not

Private land burdened by a civic use. The seller owns the land; the community holds a right over it. In 2023 the Constitutional Court (judgment 119/2023) held that the "inalienable" regime of Law 168/2017 cannot apply to private land with unsettled civic uses. Such land can be sold, and the right goes with it until it is settled. Risk to the buyer: manageable, once the settlement and redemption are done and registered.

Collective land (demanio civico). The community owns the land. Article 3(3) of Law 168/2017 keeps it inalienable, indivisible, immune to adverse possession and permanently destined to farming, forestry and grazing. A seller who "owns" such land on paper may simply have occupied it. In court practice the Commissario decides both whether land is civic and whether a sale of civic land to a private party is void, as a 2018 judgment on Castelliri explains. The Court of Cassation (third civil section, judgment 29344 of 21 October 2021) has also held void a lease of collective land that conflicted with the collective use. Risk to the buyer: high. No period of possession turns collective land into private property, and a deed without the required authorisation can be declared void.

For a foreign buyer the practical difference is this: the first case is a cost you negotiate, the second is a title problem the seller must solve before you pay.

What redemption costs: real figures from Lazio

When a civic use on private land is settled, it is often converted into an annual charge to the municipality. The owner can then redeem the charge with a lump sum under Article 33 of Royal Decree 332/1928. The Lazio Region’s decisions, published online, show the arithmetic:

The usual rule visible in these acts is twenty years' charge: €442.90 × 20 = €8,858. The Cori case shows that the capital can include more. In regularisation cases where charges were not paid, Lazio adds ten years of interest under Article 10 of Law 1766/1927 (decision C2358 of 2 October 2008), and does not when they were paid on time (decision C0713 of 10 April 2008). Read how your own decision builds the figure before relying on any multiple.

In Sutri the owner paid €1,640 to the municipality, and the decision states that from then on the land is free of civic use rights. Decisions also commonly say that procedure costs fall on the private parties. Budget for the expert’s report (perito demaniale), registration and the notary on top of the capital.

Reading a regional decision

If the notary or the municipality sends you a regional decision, four lines tell you most of what you need. The heading names the municipality and the type of procedure: settlement (liquidazione), regularisation (legittimazione) or authorisation under Article 12. The body names the parcels by sheet and parcel number and the right concerned (grazing, firewood, sowing). The operative part sets the annual charge, the redemption capital and who receives it, usually the municipality or the hamlet’s administration. The closing lines say where the act is published and how to challenge it; the Sutri decision, for example, is published in the Lazio regional bulletin and can be challenged before the competent judicial authority from the date of publication. Check that the parcel numbers match today’s cadastral map: a parcel may have been split or renumbered since the decision, and a mismatch is a question for the surveyor before the deed.

Regularising occupied collective land: Abruzzo, 2024

If someone has occupied collective land for years and improved it, the 1927 law allows legittimazione (Article 10). Lazio decisions cite three recurring conditions: occupation for more than ten years, substantial and permanent improvements, and an occupied area that does not break the continuity of the collective land. The result is a charge payable to the community, which can then be redeemed.

Abruzzo has handed this function to municipalities (Regional Law 47/2022; the general regional law is Law 25 of 1988). In Avezzano (province of L’Aquila) the Region approved, by decision DPD021/712/2024, list no. 1/2024 of 12 February 2024: regularisation of possession with simultaneous redemption in favour of one party. The decision tells the municipality to collect ten past years of charge and, where needed, the annual charge, due by 31 August each year. A second Avezzano list was approved by DPD021/167/2025, published in the regional bulletin in April 2025.

A worked example using that structure, with illustrative numbers: an annual charge of €120 means 10 × €120 = €1,200 of back payments, and at twenty times, €2,400 to redeem. Total €3,600 before fees. Real figures are in the annex of the approved list for each municipality.

Abruzzo law also requires that when a public body sells collective land, the sale conditions, including the selling body’s right of pre-emption, be written into the sale contract for registration. Regional decisions note an appeal to the regional administrative court (TAR) within 60 days.

Selling collective land: why the door is narrow

Collective land can change use or be sold only with authorisation under Article 12 of Law 1766/1927. Lazio has authorised, for instance, the transfer of collective land that the town plan had zoned as a public park, and temporary changes of use; in Manziana the permit provided that the land would return to its original use once the purpose ended.

Regions that tried to widen the door have been stopped. The Constitutional Court limited the removal of civic status to the cases in the 1927 law (judgment 103/2017), and in judgment 113 of 31 May 2018, on a question raised by the Commissario for Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany, struck down Article 8 of Lazio Regional Law 1/1986 (as amended in 2005), which had allowed the sale of collective land already built on or zoned for building.

Since 2021 national law offers another route: Article 3(8-bis) and following of Law 168/2017, added by Article 63-bis of Decree-Law 77 of 31 May 2021 (converted by Law 108/2021), allow civic use rights to be moved to other land of equivalent area and environmental value owned by a municipality or region, or exchanged. One condition is that the land being released has not been altered without landscape authorisation. The released land loses its civic status but keeps its landscape protection.

The landscape constraint stays

Article 142(1)(h) of the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code (Legislative Decree 42/2004) protects by law "areas assigned to agrarian universities and zones burdened by civic uses". Emilia-Romagna’s method paper on this constraint notes that, under Article 3(6) of Law 168/2017, the protection survives settlement or transfer of the civic uses; Piedmont’s FAQ says the same for transfers. After redemption you still need landscape authorisation to extend a house or build an outbuilding. See our guide to the landscape constraint.

How Piedmont checks

Piedmont applies Regional Law 29 of 2009 and regional regulation 8/R of 2016; since Regional Law 23/2015 some functions belong to the Metropolitan City of Turin and the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. The presence and location of civic land in a municipality is established by an expert (perito istruttore) appointed by the Region, and decisions are published in the regional bulletin. Some of those decisions record that the archive of the former Turin commissioner’s office holds no documents at all for certain municipalities, while for others an assignment decree exists. Where a municipality wants to sell burdened land, it needs authorisation with prior removal of civic status, as in a published case for Piode.

Checks for a buyer abroad

1. Get parcel numbers for everything in the sale (see foglio and particella).
2. Write to the municipality (property office or technical office) asking whether the parcels are collective land or private land with civic uses, and whether a municipal inventory or survey exists. A local surveyor (geometra) can file this for you.
3. Write to the region’s civic use office asking for assignment decrees, surveys, regularisation lists or settlement decisions for those parcels. Many are published: in Lazio under file names starting "AGC_DD", in Abruzzo under "DPD021".
4. Order the CDU, but do not rely on it alone. In Lazio a seller of farmland once produced both a planning certificate annotated for civic uses and a regional statement based on surveyors' checks, yet the Commissario has said the CDU is not the right document to certify civic uses. See our guide to the CDU.
5. Ask the notary to search the property registers for registered settlement, regularisation or redemption decrees; that is the proof the burden has been closed (see the notary’s role).
6. Check the landscape map for the Article 142(1)(h) constraint.
7. Make the preliminary contract conditional on a clean result, with a clause on who pays redemption and fees (see preliminary contract).

Allow time. Region and municipality answer by letter or certified email (PEC), and a settlement or regularisation has several steps: expert survey, municipal act, regional decision, registration. If you are buying from abroad, a notarised power of attorney lets a local professional handle the correspondence.

The TerrenoCheck report shows the planning zone and mapped constraints for the parcel you pick, including landscape constraints, with source and date. It is not a civic use certificate: only the municipality or region can issue that. Check the zoning and constraints on your parcel in a TerrenoCheck report, from €29 → · See a sample report

If the result is bad

Private land, civic use not yet settled. Ask the seller to start settlement and redemption before completion, or make the contract conditional, agree who pays, and hold back the estimated amount from the price.

Charge already set but not redeemed. Ask for the settlement act and receipts. Missing years add up: regularisation acts go back ten years, and Lazio may add ten years of interest. Then redeem.

The land is collective. Do not sign. The seller cannot transfer what they do not own. The possible routes (regularisation if the conditions are met, an authorised sale by the public body, the 2021 transfer of rights) belong to the seller and the public body, take time, and must be finished before you pay.

A house stands on collective land. Besides title, there is the landscape issue: the 2021 transfer route requires that the land was not altered without landscape authorisation. An unauthorised house on collective land is among the worst things you can buy.

You have already bought. Collect the deed, cadastral extracts and regional decisions and get a lawyer. Disputes about whether a civic use exists go to the Commissario.

The TerrenoCheck report is not legal advice or a land survey and does not certify the absence of civic uses; it shows constraints and zoning so you know what to ask. Check the zoning and constraints on your parcel in a TerrenoCheck report, from €29 → · See a sample report