Agibilità and the Energy Certificate: What Each Is, and What Happens When One Is Missing

Picture a buyer at a kitchen table, the seller’s papers stacked beside the coffee cups, wondering which of these documents matters and what follows if one is missing. Two of them are often mentioned together in an Italian sale, and this article takes them one at a time.

The article sets out what the statute says about each, what the notarial and court sources say about a missing agibilità, and what the Court of Cassation decided in January 2026 on a notary’s duty to inform. It rests on the texts read on 30 September 2026. Whether a particular property has either document, and what follows if it does not, depends on its history and on the contract.

Are agibilità and the energy certificate the same thing?

They are not. Agibilità attests that a building meets the conditions of safety, hygiene, healthiness and energy saving and conforms to the project. The attestato di prestazione energetica, the APE, states the energy performance and class of a building or unit. The two arise under different statutes and follow different rules, and the table puts them side by side.

The rest of the article follows the table: the statute on agibilità first, then what happens when it is missing, the notary and the 2026 order, and finally the energy certificate.

What does the law say about agibilità?

Until 2016 a certificate of agibilità, or of abitabilità, habitability, was issued by the municipality. A 2016 decree replaced the certificate with a certified notice, the segnalazione certificata di agibilità (SCA), and repealed the article on the certificate.^[9] That is why older documents and the older notarial literature speak of a certificate. Under the building code, the conditions of safety, hygiene, healthiness and energy saving of buildings and their systems, together with the conformity of the work to the project and its agibilità, are now attested by the notice.^[10] Where applicable, the duties on digital infrastructure are attested too.^[10]

The holder of the building permit, or the person who filed the SCIA, or their successors, files the notice with the municipal building office, the SUE. The deadline is 15 days from the end of the finishing works. It applies to new buildings, to total or partial rebuilding or raising, and to works on existing buildings that may affect the conditions above.^[11] Failure to file in those cases carries an administrative fine of €77 to €464.^[12] The notice may cover single buildings, parts of a building that are functionally autonomous, or single units, if the conditions set by the law are met.^[13]

A set of documents goes with the notice. It includes an attestation by the works director, or another qualified professional, that the conditions exist, and the structural test certificate or, in the cases provided, a declaration of regular execution. It also includes a declaration of conformity with the rules on accessibility, the particulars of the cadastral update and the installer’s declaration of conformity of the systems. Where provided, there is also the attestation of a building equipped for ultra-broadband.^[14]

The use of the building may begin from the date the notice, with its documents, is filed with the SUE.^[15] Regions, provinces and municipalities regulate how checks, including sample checks and inspections, are carried out.^[16]

There is also a provision for buildings that have no notice. It allows the notice to be filed without works for lawfully built buildings that lack agibilità and meet requirements to be set by a ministerial decree.^[17] A professional commentary of December 2021 states that the decree had not been adopted at that date and that, until then, the provision could not be applied. A later summary reports the same. The same commentary states that the other paragraphs of the article do not provide for a notice without works.^[18]

What happens when agibilità is missing?

The account that follows rests on a notarial paper, on the Civil Code and on the Court of Cassation order described in the next section.^[1] The paper predates later changes to the building code.

No rule stops the sale, and the deed is not void. The paper states that no rule bars the sale of a building without the requirements for agibilità, or without the certificate, and that the absence does not make the deed void.^[1] “What the Notaio Checks, and What the Notaio Does Not” reports a 2025 first-instance decision to the same effect.^[19]

The seller’s duty is a separate point. Under the Civil Code the seller must also deliver the titles and documents relating to the ownership and use of the thing sold.^[20] The paper treats the delivery of the agibilità document as falling within that duty. The appeal court in the case discussed below, as recorded by the Court of Cassation, held that the duty can be excluded by the parties and that its breach does not affect the validity of the deed.^[21]

The paper distinguishes two situations. In the first, the building lacks the requirements themselves, for example because of a planning violation that cannot be regularised. The paper treats this as the delivery of a different thing, aliud pro alio, so that the buyer may terminate the contract for serious breach and claim damages. In the second, only the document is missing, and the seriousness of the breach is assessed in the concrete case.

A buyer can give up the protection, but only expressly. The paper states that the interest is private and can be waived, but only by an express and unequivocal waiver. A statement in a preliminary contract or purchase offer that the certificate is missing is not, on its own, such a waiver.^[1] For old buildings, the paper states that buildings not touched by works since the building code (the Testo Unico) came into force on 30 June 2003 are under no obligation to file the notice.^[22]

What does the notary have to do about a missing agibilità?

The notarial paper states that a notary is not liable under the Notarial Law merely for signing a deed where the certificate is missing, because the deed is not void. It adds that a refusal to sign could itself breach that law.^[23] It states that the notary’s duty is to verify whether the certificate exists and, if it does not, to inform the parties of the consequences.^[24] The duty does not extend to a technical check of agibilità.

In an order of 24 January 2026 the Court of Cassation applied the duty to inform.^[21] A buyer had bought a unit in 2008 for €34,000 under a deed describing it as residential. He alleged that it was in fact a storage space, and sued both the seller and the notary. The court of first instance ordered the seller to return the price and rejected the claim against the notary. The Court of Appeal of Salerno upheld the rejection, on the ground that the notary’s duty does not extend to control of administrative licences.^[21]

The Court of Cassation quashed that part of the judgment and sent the case back for a new decision.^[21] It held that the question is one of the notary’s objective duties of good faith, which include informing and advising the client.^[25] It restated that the notary answers for the damage the buyer suffers from the absence of the requirements for the certificate of habitability, even if the buyer could easily have found out, “when it is not shown that the professional informed the client of the situation and its possible consequences”.^[26] It also noted an older decision that a notary’s refusal to sign a deed where the certificate is missing was legitimate.^[26]

The order does not decide that the notary in that case was liable: it sent the case back. It does not say that a notary must inspect a property or check its licences technically. The point it restates concerns information. “What the Notaio Checks, and What the Notaio Does Not” describes the separate point that the notary does not verify the building against its permit.

What does the law say about the energy certificate?

The APE is issued for buildings or units that are built, sold or let to a new tenant.^[27] New buildings and major renovations must have an APE before the agibilità is issued, and for a new building the builder produces it. For an existing building offered for sale, the owner must produce the APE if there is none.^[27]

The owner must make the APE available to the potential buyer at the start of the negotiations and deliver it at the end of them.^[28] If a building is sold before it is built, the seller gives evidence of its future energy performance and produces the APE within 15 days of the request for the agibilità.^[28]

The deed carries its own requirement. Contracts of sale and transfers for consideration must contain a clause in which the buyer declares that he or she has received the information and documentation on the building’s energy performance, including the APE. A copy of the APE must be attached to the contract.^[29] If the declaration or attachment is omitted, the parties are jointly and equally liable to an administrative fine of €3,000 to €18,000. Paying the fine does not remove the duty to send the declaration or copy to the Region within 45 days.^[29] The Agenzia delle Entrate passes the relevant registration information to the Regions.^[29] The provision does not say that the deed is void, and “How a Foreigner Buys Property in Italy” reports notarial sources that the deed remains valid.

The APE is valid for at most ten years and is updated at each renovation that changes the building’s energy class.^[30] That maximum depends on compliance with the checks on heating systems: if a required check is missed, the APE lapses on 31 December of the year after the first missed check.^[30] Advertisements for a sale or letting must state the building’s energy performance indices and energy class.^[31]

Which rules apply when a certificate is produced?

The Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (MASE) has stated, in its guidance to operators of 18 June 2026, that an APE is drawn up under the rules in force when it is produced.^[32] A ministerial decree of 28 October 2025, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 5 December 2025, updated the 2015 decree on minimum requirements.^[33] It came into force 180 days after its publication, that is on 3 June 2026.^[33] The same guidance states that, because an APE lasts ten years, an APE prepared for one purpose, such as a new building, may be used later for another, such as a sale.^[32]

At European level, Directive (EU) 2024/1275 on the energy performance of buildings set 29 May 2026 as the date for member states to transpose it.^[34] This article does not describe what the directive will change for certificates.

Which document matters at which stage of the purchase?

The table follows the two documents through the purchase, stage by stage.