Three siblings own a building and one does not want to sell: what can be done?

Until there is a division, each heir holds a share of the whole, not a flat or a floor. The rules on co-ownership apply ²:

If no majority forms, or its decisions are not carried out, any co-owner can go to court, and the judge may appoint an administrator (art. 1105) ². A testator may postpone division for up to five years from death, or until a year after the youngest heir comes of age (art. 713) ¹; at a co-heir's request the court may suspend division for up to five years if dividing immediately would seriously damage the estate (art. 717) ¹; the heirs may agree to stay in co-ownership for no more than ten years (art. 1111) ².

Two rules bite straight away:

• A share can be sold, but the co-heirs have a right of first refusal. An heir who wants to sell their share to an outsider must notify the offer and price to the others, who have two months to exercise it; without notice, they can buy the share back from whoever bought it, for as long as the co-ownership lasts (art. 732) ¹. To be checked with a lawyer on the facts: the rule speaks of the share in the inheritance; whether it also covers a share in a single property of the estate, or transfers other than a sale for a price, is a matter of case law, not of the text.
• Division is retroactive. Once the estate is divided, each heir is treated as the sole successor to the assets received, as if never having owned the others (art. 757) ¹.

Accepting the inheritance. The right to accept lapses after ten years (art. 480), but anyone with an interest, a co-heir included, can ask the court to set a deadline for an heir who is playing for time; once it passes, that heir loses the right to accept (art. 481) ¹. An heir in possession of estate assets must make an inventory within three months of death or of learning of it; otherwise they are treated as having accepted outright and lose the option of accepting with the benefit of inventory (art. 485) ¹. Selling an estate asset normally amounts to tacit acceptance (art. 476), and selling one's inheritance rights amounts to acceptance (art. 477) ¹.

Filing the succession return within twelve months of death (art. 31, Legislative Decree 346/1990) ⁷. It is enough for one of those obliged to file it (art. 28, para. 4) ⁷. For successions opened from 1 January 2025 the tax is self-assessed and paid within ninety days of the filing deadline (arts 33 and 37) ⁷. Mortgage and cadastral taxes, stamp duty and registry fees on the properties are instead assessed and paid by the filing deadline itself (art. 33, para. 1) ⁷. From 1.000 euroNormattiva upwards, inheritance tax can be paid in instalments: at least 20%Normattiva within the ninety days, the rest in eight quarterly instalments, or up to twelve above 20.000 euroNormattiva, if requested in the return (art. 38) ⁷⁸.

In Trieste, the certificate of inheritance. This is where Trieste parts company with most of Italy. In the land-register municipalities (the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia and part of the province of Udine) ¹⁵ an heir can have a property registered in their name only by filing with the land register judge the certificate of inheritance issued by the court; until then, nothing can be registered against them – neither a sale nor a mortgage (art. 3, Royal Decree 499/1929) ¹⁴. If the estate includes real property, applying for the certificate is compulsory (art. 13) ¹⁴. Outside the land-register areas – in Pordenone and in the parts of the Udine area that use the ordinary system – the acceptance is instead registered by transcription in the property registry (art. 2648 Civil Code) ⁴.

Listed property. If the estate includes a building protected as cultural heritage, the heir must notify the succession to the heritage superintendency (Soprintendenza) within thirty days of acceptance or of filing the return (art. 59, Legislative Decree 42/2004) ²⁰. When the heirs later sell it, the State has sixty days from notification of the sale to buy it at the same price; until then the deed is suspended and the property cannot be handed over (arts 60–61) ²⁰. Put that in the timetable and tell the buyer.

The deadlines set by law

The law sets no deadline for the certificate of inheritance or for the land register decree. In Trieste the land registry is slow; the guide to the land register reports what we measured on decrees served.

For successions opened from 2025, rates in force in 2026 ⁷⁸:

On real property you add mortgage tax at 2%Normattiva and cadastral tax at 1%Normattiva, each with a minimum of 200 euroNormattiva, or a fixed 200 euroNormattiva each if the heir meets the "first home" conditions for a non-luxury dwelling ⁸⁹¹⁰. Note: In the land-register municipalities, mortgage tax on land register decrees is assessed by the Revenue Agency office after the decree ¹⁶: ask the notary how this fits with self-assessment in the return for the certificate of inheritance.

The value to declare. The basis is market value at the date of death (art. 14) ⁷, but the tax office will not adjust the value of buildings with a cadastral income if the declared value is at least the revalued cadastral value; this does not apply to development land, nor to a property without an assigned cadastral income (art. 34, paras 5–6) ⁷. The cadastral value is almost always far from the market, and must not be confused with the value on which the family has to decide.

If you inherit a business, not a building. A hotel is often a business rather than bricks and mortar. The rules change: a transfer to descendants or the spouse of a business or a controlling shareholding is exempt from inheritance tax if the recipient carries on the business, or keeps control, for at least five years (art. 3, para. 4-ter) ⁷; the taxable base and the tax on a later sale follow rules different from those described here. Set it up with your accountant before filing.

When you then sell. A gain on an inherited building is not taxed as income, however long it has been held, provided it is not a business asset (art. 67, para. 1(b), Income Tax Code) ¹²; the exclusion also covers properties with superbonus works (letter b-bis) ¹². The exceptions are development land, where the gain is always taxed, with a base cost equal to the value declared in the succession (or later agreed) plus inheritance tax and subsequent costs (art. 68, para. 2) ¹², and subdivision of land, taxed as such (art. 67(a)) ¹². For development land, a low value in the return is paid for later.

This is the central choice. There is no right answer in the abstract: it depends on how many heirs there are, what they want (cash, income, an asset to keep) and what the estate consists of.

Three warnings from the statute:

• An unlawful building cannot be divided; one with irregularities has to be understood first. In 2019 the joint chambers of the Court of Cassation held that a division of an inheritance, by agreement or by the court, is void if it does not state the details of the building consent (or, for works begun before 1 September 1967, a declaration to that effect); the court cannot divide an unlawful building, though each heir can obtain division of the other assets, that building excluded ¹⁹¹⁸. The nullity is "textual": if the deed cites a genuine consent relating to that building, it is valid even where the building departs from it, as the same judgment summarises with reference to judgment no. 8230/2019 ¹⁹. Irregularities remain a problem of value, regularisation and saleability. Every deed ending co-ownership of buildings must also, on pain of nullity, refer to the cadastral floor plans and declare cadastral compliance (art. 29, para. 1-bis, Law 52/1985); if only the reference was missing and the plans were compliant, the deed can be confirmed later (para. 1-ter) ¹⁷. Check before.
• In Trieste the division must be registered in the land register. Nothing can be registered on the assets allotted to an heir – not even their sale – until the division is entered in the land register (art. 4, Royal Decree 499/1929) ¹⁴. Elsewhere the division is registered by transcription (art. 2646 Civil Code) ⁴.
• Lifetime gifts count. Children, descendants and the spouse must bring into account what they received from the deceased by gift, unless excused within the disposable portion (art. 737 Civil Code) ¹; for registration tax those gifts count towards the estate and the shares, without tax (art. 34) ¹¹.

Sometimes, and often less than families expect. Before spending, separate two things.

1. Putting the papers in order nearly always pays: aligning the land register and the cadastre, regularising irregularities that can be regularised, obtaining the energy performance certificate, collecting leases and service charge records. Without these steps a division may be void ¹⁷¹⁹ and a sale may stall.
2. Transforming the asset (refurbishing, changing use, splitting) is an investment with a risk, which the heirs take on together and pay for in proportion: it needs a two-thirds majority by value, and no one may be prejudiced (art. 1108) ². Compare it with what a professional buyer would pay today to do the same work instead of the family. For changes of use in Friuli Venezia Giulia, see the guide on conversions (in Italian).

Disagreement is the rule, not the exception. The law offers a sequence.

1. No one is obliged to stay in co-ownership. Any heir can ask for division at any time; the court may suspend it for up to five years if immediate division would seriously damage the estate (art. 717 Civil Code), or grant a delay of no more than five years if it would harm the other co-owners (art. 1111) ¹².
2. Before proceedings, mediation is compulsory. For divisions and inheritance disputes, mediation is a precondition of the claim (art. 5, Legislative Decree 28/2010) ⁶. The condition is met even if the first meeting ends without agreement (art. 5, para. 4); if the parties want to use it properly, the procedure can last up to six months, extendable in writing (art. 6) ⁶. Used as a formality it merely opens the door to court; used with an agreed valuation on the table, it is a place to look for a settlement.
3. If the shares are not in dispute, the joint route. The heirs can jointly ask the court to entrust the division to a notary or a lawyer, with a valuer if needed (art. 791-bis Code of Civil Procedure) ⁵.
4. Division by the court. The claim is brought against all the heirs (art. 784 Code of Civil Procedure) ⁵; the court has the assets valued, draws up a plan and allots the lots: equal lots are drawn by lot, unequal ones are assigned (art. 789 Code of Civil Procedure; art. 729 Civil Code) ⁵¹. A property that cannot conveniently be divided goes whole, with the excess charged, preferably to the co-heir with the largest share or to several co-heirs asking jointly; if no one wants it, it is sold at auction (art. 720 Civil Code) ¹.

We have found no official statistics on how long division proceedings take in the Trieste district. The stages are those above: mediation, proceedings, valuation, and possibly a sale under the enforcement rules ⁵⁶. Meanwhile the estate stands still, and costs run for everyone.

An heir who uses a shared asset alone – living in a flat, say, or running a family shop – may not do so in a way that prevents the others from the same use (art. 1102) ²: situations to settle in writing from the start.

Families rarely fall out over the law; they fall out over three things: what it is worth, what suits each of them, and who trusts whom. Three tools take the heat out of the dispute.

• An independent, reasoned valuation, by a valuer chosen together: a figure or a range, with the method and assumptions in writing, distinct from the tax value ⁷ and from the price each heir hopes for. In a court division the valuation is made by the court's expert (arts 726–727 Civil Code) ¹; arriving with an agreed basis shortens the road.
• Comparable scenarios, prepared by the accountant: for each route in the table above, what each heir receives net, how soon, with which taxes and at what risk. Once the figures sit on the same page, positions of principle often soften.
• Someone to keep the sequence: papers first, then values, then the choice, and finally the deed. The notary, lawyer and accountant remain the family's own.

An estate agent has a duty that applies between heirs too: to tell the parties the circumstances they know of that bear on the value and safety of the deal (art. 1759 Civil Code) ³. That is why we say at the outset on whose behalf we act: for all the heirs together, or for one. The two are never mixed.

The articles of Legislative Decree 346/1990, Presidential Decree 131/1986 and the Income Tax Code cited here are marked on Normattiva "in force until 31-12-2026" ⁷¹¹¹². From 1 January 2027 inheritance, registration, mortgage and cadastral taxes move into the new consolidated act, Legislative Decree 123/2025, which applies from that date (art. 205) ¹³; the Income Tax Code is also replaced by a new consolidated act. This guide will be renumbered in January 2027; at that point it must be checked that rates and allowances have not changed.

In these cases we work for the family in our role as an estate agency (mediatore): we bring the heirs' own valuer, notary, lawyer and accountant to the table, keep the steps in order and, once the decision is made, look for suitable buyers.