Let’s take stock of the story – mostly media – which arose last Tuesday evening following the statements made by the Minister of Economy and Finance Giancarlo Giorgetti during a parliamentary hearing.
As recognized yesterday by the minister himself in a press note released jointly with the leader of his party, it was the Construction Confederation to clarify, practically simultaneously with the declarations in Parliament, the contents of these, through the following post published by the writer:
“Let’s recap. The Minister of Economy reads a document at the hearing which talks about «updating of cadastral archives which must include: (a) properties not currently registered b) revised cadastral values for those properties that have achieved a structural improvement, following redevelopment interventions financed in whole or in part by public funds”. In the reply, the Minister specifies that it concerns: (a) look for ghost houses (b) verify that whoever carried out the work has updated the cadastral data. Both activities are routine. If this is the case, case closed.”
Also due to the objective ambiguity of the Minister’s first statement, combined with the predictable amount of sloppiness on the one hand and political speculation on the other, yesterday’s newspapers were full of very distorted information if not completely false (the same, still, many information websites).
It may be useful, then, to explain the issue further.
1. Look for “ghost houses”in addition to being a duty of an orderly State, it is also a commitment undertaken by the Government and Parliament with the tax reform approved just over a year ago (article 16, paragraph 1, letter n), law no. 111/2023): “Provide for the strengthening of tools and organizational models that favor the sharing of data and documents, electronically, between the Revenue Agency and the competent offices of the municipalities, also with the aim of facilitating and accelerating the identification of unregistered properties and illegal properties”.
At the moment, this is the situation. If new rules emerge, they can be commented on (and possibly criticized).