Before you hire a geometra or a notary to look at a trullo, a masseria or an apartment in Puglia, you can already pull some public records and ask the seller for others. This is a check before you pay a professional. It does not replace either of them, and it is not legal advice.
By the Puglia Everyday editors. Last updated: 13 November 2026. Official pages checked the same day.
Key finding: Cadastral records for a property you do not own are public and free to consult online with a SPID, CIE or CNS login, but the floor plan (planimetria) is not. The seller, or someone they delegate, has to request it. A mortgage search (ispezione ipotecaria) on someone else’s property has a fee. The notary who draws up the deed will run official cadastral and mortgage checks, and a geometra is the person who compares the house as it stands with the plans and the town’s permit file. The graphic below runs from the simplest check to the hardest. After the visura, the first question is whether the house has an agibilità. Then comes the triple match: the cadastral plan, urban-planning compliance (the house matching its building permits, not the town’s zoning plan) and the house as it stands must all agree. Use it to decide whether a property is worth that next step.
Cite this: Puglia Everyday research, “What to Check Before Buying a House in Puglia”, 13 November 2026, pugliaeveryday.com
What you can check yourself, and what you should ask for
The Agenzia delle Entrate treats cadastral data as public. With a SPID, CIE or CNS login you can download, at no charge, a current or historical visura for a building or a plot if you have its cadastral identifiers, or a current list of properties in a named owner’s name. That service covers the whole country except the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano.
The floor plan is the exception. The planimetria is reserved to people with rights on the property, their delegates, or others with a legitimate reason to see it. Ask the seller for a copy, or have a geometra request it. The same rule applies at a local Territorio office.
Title and mortgage information comes from an ispezione ipotecaria (sometimes called a visura ipotecaria). The Revenue Agency says this is how you can see who is registered as the owner and whether mortgages, foreclosures or other rights are recorded. That search is free only if you already own the property. If you do not, legal fees apply; we have not quoted a figure because the Agency states that fees are due without publishing a single amount on the page we checked. The notary who later draws up the deed will run official cadastral and mortgage checks anyway. Treat your own search as an early look, not the final one.
For landscape and cultural-heritage constraints, two Ministry of Culture portals are useful as a first pass: SITAP for landscape designations, and Vincoli in Rete for architectural and archaeological listings. The Ministry itself warns that SITAP is informative only, not a certificate, and is not exhaustive, and that Vincoli in Rete may be out of date. Confirm anything that matters with a geometra and, where needed, the local Soprintendenza.
From the seller, ask early for the planimetria, the building permits and any condono or sanatoria papers, the habitability certificate if one exists (agibilità), the electrical and gas declarations of conformity, the energy certificate (APE), the deed by which they acquired the house, and, for an apartment, the condominium rules and a statement of costs. Our guides to cadastral and planning compliance, what a geometra checks and choosing a notary cover the professional stage in more detail. The buying hub sets out the rest of the purchase.
Start with the visura catastale
A visura catastale sets out the comune, the cadastral identifiers (sheet, parcel and subaltern), the category and class, the surface or consistency, the cadastral income (rendita), and the people registered as owners and the rights they hold. Those figures are also the starting point for some property taxes, including IMU. The catasto is a tax register. It is not, on its own, proof that the building is legal.
The fork: is there an agibilità?
The next question decides how much work is ahead. Since 2016 (Legislative Decree 222/2016), agibilità is attested by a segnalazione certificata di agibilità (SCA) filed by a technician, replacing the old town-issued certificato di agibilità, or abitabilità on older houses; an SCA is not the same as a SCIA, which is a filing to start building works. Under article 24 of Presidential Decree 380/2001, it is required for new buildings, rebuilds and raised floors, and for works on existing buildings that affect safety, hygiene, energy use or the systems. It is filed with a technician’s statement that the building matches the approved project, the reference to the cadastral update, and the installers’ declarations for the systems.
If the seller can show one, the path is lighter. It is filed with the technician’s statement, the cadastral update and the installers’ declarations of conformity for the systems (Presidential Decree 380/2001, article 24, paragraph 5), so the system certificates are already in that file. Ask for a copy, and ask whether anything has been built, opened up, converted or rewired since it was filed, because the certificate speaks for the house as it was then. The owners still have to declare in the deed that the cadastral plan matches the house, so the plan check below never disappears entirely.
If there is none, we have not treated that as proof that a sale is impossible; that point is for the geometra and the notary to apply to the specific building. It does mean the harder path: a geometra compares the planimetria with the house and reads the permits in the comune’s file, so the triple match is built before you make an offer, and you ask separately for the system certificates. Our habitability note covers the rental angle.
The triple match: plan, permits and the house
Three things have to agree before a sale goes smoothly: the cadastral plan (planimetria catastale), urban-planning compliance (conformità urbanistica), and the house as it actually stands (stato di fatto). Urban-planning compliance means the house matches the building permits (titoli edilizi) on file at the comune. It is not a check against the town’s zoning plan (the PRG or PUG), which sets what can be built in an area. The deed must carry the owners’ declaration that the cadastral plan matches the house, and it must cite the building permits. A permit missing altogether can void the sale; a gap between the permits and the house can still block a mortgage or a later renovation. The details of both rules are below.
If the seller can show an agibilità, the lighter path is to check that nothing has changed against this triangle. If there is none, a geometra builds the match from the plan, the permits and the house.
The harder path: the plan, the permits and a geometra
The planimetria is the technical drawing of the unit, usually at a scale of 1:200, showing the outline, the rooms and their use. Since 2010, a deed transferring a building must identify it in the catasto, refer to the filed plans, and include the owners’ declaration that the cadastral data and the plans match the property as it stands. If that declaration is missing, the deed is void (Decree-Law 78/2010, article 19, paragraph 14, converted by Law 122/2010). In practice, a geometra compares the plan with the house before the deed and files an update if needed. If the seller cannot produce a plan, or the rooms you walk through do not match it, stop and get a professional opinion before you offer. We explain the fixes, and the 2024 Salva Casa tolerances, in the compliance guide.
Urban-planning compliance (conformità urbanistica) means the house matches the building permits issued by the comune, under the Consolidated Building Act (Presidential Decree 380/2001). That is not the same as matching the town’s zoning plan (the PRG or PUG). The name of the permit has changed over time, from a building license to a concession and then to a permesso di costruire, with lighter notices (SCIA, CILA) for smaller works. Three national building amnesties, in 1985, 1994 and 2003, allowed some unauthorized works to be legalized if the application was accepted. Ask for those papers if the seller mentions a condono.
The deed must cite the building titles, or, for construction begun before 1 September 1967, a declaration to that effect. Italy’s Supreme Court (Sezioni Unite, ruling 8230 of 2019) held that a sale is void only if the permit is missing or does not refer to that building. If a real permit is cited, the deed can still be valid when the building differs from it. The differences then pass to you, and they can block a mortgage or a later renovation. That is why this check belongs before an offer, not after it. A geometra reads the comune’s building file and compares the approved drawings with the house.
On this path, also ask the seller for the installers’ declarations of conformity (dichiarazione di conformità) for the electrical, gas and water systems; all three are covered by Ministerial Decree 37/2008 (article 1). Under article 7 of the decree, the installer issues one at the end of the work. For systems installed before the decree took effect in 2008, a qualified professional can issue a substitute declaration (dichiarazione di rispondenza) after an inspection if the original is missing. The rule that once required these papers in sale deeds, article 13 of the same decree, was repealed in 2008 by Decree-Law 112/2008, article 35, so a missing declaration does not on its own stop a sale. It is still worth asking: without one you are buying the systems as they are, and any work to bring them up to standard belongs in your offer.
Landscape and heritage constraints
Landscape and cultural-heritage rules are a separate layer, and they come up often with trulli and historic masserie. Under article 146 of the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code (Legislative Decree 42/2004), works that would harm the protected landscape values of a designated property generally need prior landscape authorization. A declaration of cultural interest is different: a sale of that kind of property must be notified to the Ministry, and the Ministry, the region or another public body may step in and buy it at the agreed price (articles 59 to 61 of the same Code). The usual window is 60 days from receipt of a complete notice, or 180 days if the notice is late or incomplete. That right of pre-emption does not automatically apply just because land sits in a landscape-protected area.
We could not download Puglia’s regional landscape plan (PPTR) this morning, so we are not stating plot-level rules for a given trullo or masseria here. Have a geometra check the specific site against the regional plan and the comune’s rules, and do not assume a ruin can be rebuilt. Our guide to buying a trullo covers the practical traps in more detail.
The energy certificate (APE), for every sale
When a building or a unit is sold, the owner must produce an energy-performance certificate (APE) if one is not already on file, make it available to a potential buyer at the start of negotiations, and hand it over at the end (Legislative Decree 192/2005, article 6). The sale contract must include a clause in which the buyer confirms receipt, and a copy of the APE must be attached. If that declaration or attachment is left out when it is due, the parties can be fined from €3,000 to €18,000, split equally. The certificate is valid for at most ten years and must be updated after works that change the energy class. Some buildings are exempt under the decree; if a seller says no APE is needed, ask the notary to confirm the exemption rather than taking that on trust.
For apartments: condo rules and costs
If you are buying an apartment, or a unit in a building with shared parts, ask for the condominium rules (regolamento), the ownership-share tables (tabelle millesimali), a recent statement of ordinary costs, and a note from the administrator on unpaid fees and any works already approved. A standalone country trullo or masseria may have no condominium at all; the question still matters if several units share a driveway, a well or a courtyard.
Italian law has rules on who pays arrears and approved works after a sale. We were not able to extract the official text of the implementing provision this morning, so we are not stating the exact split here. Give the papers to the notary and have the allocation written into the preliminary contract. Our note on the purchase offer and preliminary agreement explains that stage.
Title: the seller’s deed, 20 years of owners, and mortgages
Ask the seller for a copy of the deed by which they acquired the house (atto di provenienza). It shows who owned it before them and what exactly was transferred. Then comes the mortgage search. Under the notaries’ own professional protocols, the notary searches the land registers going back at least 20 years, so that the chain of transfers is continuous and any mortgages or court measures come to light.
The ispezione ipotecaria is a search of the land-publicity registers held by the Revenue Agency. It shows trascrizioni (transfers, usufruct, partitions, foreclosures and similar events), iscrizioni (mortgages) and annotazioni (later changes, including cancellations). In short, it should tell you whether the person selling is the registered owner and whether mortgages or court measures sit on the property.
A mortgage on the search is not automatically a reason to walk away; many sales pay one off at the deed. A foreclosure, a seizure, or a seller who is not the registered owner is a reason to pause. Ask the notary to explain what appears before you sign a preliminary contract. The Agency is clear that the important official checks are the ones the notary carries out for the deed.
Red flags that mean you should pause
None of these, on its own, always kills a purchase. Each is a reason to stop, hire a geometra and a notary, and agree in writing who fixes what, at whose cost, and by when, before you pay a deposit:
- The house as you walked it does not match the planimetria, or the seller cannot produce the plan.
- The seller is vague about permits, or mentions a condono without papers.
- The mortgage search shows a foreclosure, a seizure, or a seller who is not the registered owner.
- The plot sits in a landscape-protected area, or the building may be a cultural-interest property, and the plan is to alter it.
- There is no APE at the start of talks, and no clear exemption.
- For an apartment, the administrator will not confirm fees, or substantial works have already been approved.
This decision tree is a pre-check, not a substitute for a geometra or a notary, and it is not legal advice. If the early papers look clean, that is the moment to pay a professional to verify them, not the moment to skip that step.
