Before you buy a house in Friuli: the checks, one by one
The notary checks a great deal, but only at completion. If the floor plan does not match the house or a permit is missing, you want to know before paying a deposit: what to ask for, where to look, what the municipal data say.
Published 22 October 2026
1. Land registry and town hall: is the house the one on paper?
- Cadastral extract (visura): category and cadastral rent, which also drive the purchase taxes. Free online with a digital ID (SPID, CIE or CNS); the floor plan is shown only to people with rights in the property, so ask the seller.
- Cadastral compliance: in the deed the seller declares, or a surveyor certifies, that the registered data and plan correspond to the property's actual condition; otherwise the deed is void.
- Planning compliance: for buildings begun after 17 March 1985 the deed cites the building permit or amnesty; for works dating from before 1 September 1967, the owner's sworn statement takes the licence's place. What counts is the "legitimate state": the permit for the building, or for the last works on the whole building or the whole unit, if the town hall checked the earlier ones.
- In this region the building code treats a flat and the common parts separately: irregularities in one do not count against the other.
- Habitability (agibilità): now a certified notice filed within 15 days of the end of works, not a town-hall certificate.
2. The energy certificate
The seller must make the APE available when negotiations start and hand it over at the end; adverts must show the energy class, or whoever is responsible faces a fine of €500 to €3,000. Its validity is capped at 10 years, conditional on the heating system's periodic inspections. It is attached to the deed; if not, the parties are jointly fined €3,000 to €18,000, though the sale stands. Here certificates are lodged on the regional SIRAPE system.
3. Mortgages, seizures, restrictions
Almost everywhere, mortgage searches on someone else's property are done online with the Revenue Agency, paid through pagoPA at a tariff cut by 20%. Trieste, Gorizia and the other land-register areas fall outside the service: there charges are read in the libro fondiario, with an extract at €10 per entry plus €16 stamp duty, from one of 6 land-register offices, issued within 10 working days. Pre-emption rights and heritage restrictions are for the notary to check; asking early costs nothing.
4. The place: earthquakes, water, landslides
These figures describe the municipality, not the house: they show where to look harder.
| Gemona del Friuli | Venzone | Latisana | Grado | Udine | Trieste | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seismic zone | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Buildings in flood areas | 1.8% | 13.3% | 76.2% | 53.2% | 8.0% | 0.6% |
| Buildings in landslide areas | 0.2% | 3.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
- Seismic zones: 32 municipalities are classed 1 and 108 are classed 2. For a given house, its age and structural work matter too: earthquakes and seismic zones.
- Floods: Latisana has 76.2% of its buildings in medium-hazard zones, Grado 53.2%; ISPRA's building figures date from the 2011 census.
- Landslides: one building in ten or more lies in a high or very high landslide-hazard area in 11 municipalities: floods and landslides.
Next: the full buying process, then offer and deposit.
Questions
What should I check before buying a house in Italy?
Registry extract and plan consistent with the real house, permits and habitability, the energy certificate, mortgages and seizures (or a land-register extract where that applies), and the municipality's seismic zone and flood areas.
Can a house be sold in Italy without an energy certificate?
It must be given to the buyer and attached to the deed; without it the sale is still valid, but the parties are fined €3,000 to €18,000.
How do I find out whether an Italian property has a mortgage?
Through an online mortgage search with the Revenue Agency; in Trieste, around Gorizia and the other land-register areas, through an extract of the libro fondiario.
Sources and method
Written by Claude, TriesteVillas' AI assistant, from the data below; checked twice against the sources before publication.
The figures on this page come from:
- D.P.R. 380/2001, art. 24: agibilità con segnalazione certificata; in FVG L.R. 19/2009, art. 27 (data as of 2026-10-22) · legge: pubblico dominio (art. 5 L. 633/1941), testo da normattiva.it
- D.Lgs. 192/2005, art. 6 cc. 2, 3, 5, 8 e art. 15 c. 10: attestato di prestazione energetica (APE) (data as of 2026-10-22) · legge: pubblico dominio (art. 5 L. 633/1941), testo da normattiva.it
- Agenzia delle Entrate — Ispezione ipotecaria online (data as of 2026-10-22) · documento ufficiale dell'Agenzia delle Entrate: si riportano i fatti, il testo non si copia
- Regione FVG — Libro fondiario: tariffe vigenti (DGR 1070/2011) e come richiedere un estratto tavolare (data as of 2026-10-22) · regione.fvg.it, tutti i diritti riservati: si riportano solo i fatti, con il link
- Dipartimento della Protezione civile — classificazione sismica dei comuni (aggiornata al 31/05/2025) (data as of 2026-10-22) · CC BY 4.0
- ISPRA IdroGEO — indicatori di rischio per comune (frane: mosaicatura PAI 2024; alluvioni: mosaicatura 2020) (data as of 2026-10-22) · CC BY 4.0
- Law 52/1985, art. 29 para 1-bis: cadastral compliance in the deed (2026-10-22)
- D.P.R. 380/2001, art. 46: building permit details in deeds (2026-10-22)
- Law 47/1985, art. 40: older buildings, works begun before 1 September 1967 (2026-10-22)
- D.P.R. 380/2001, art. 9-bis para 1-bis: legitimate state (D.L. 69/2024) (2026-10-22)
- Regional Law FVG 19/2009 (regional building code), art. 40-ter (2026-10-22)
- Legislative Decree 192/2005, art. 6: energy performance certificate (2026-10-22)
- Regione FVG — SIRAPE, filing and viewing energy certificates (2026-10-22)
- Agenzia delle Entrate — online cadastral extract (2026-10-22)
- Agenzia delle Entrate — online mortgage search (land-register areas excluded) (2026-10-22)
- Regione FVG — Libro fondiario: offices and extracts (2026-10-22)
- Consiglio nazionale del notariato — «I controlli classici» (2026-10-22)