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Italy’s government wants to encourage people to invest in old homes in the country’s urban areas in 2020, a real estate segment that’s losing value at such a rate that it’s weighing down the property market as a whole.
“In recent years the price of these properties had grown too much. And there’s the fact that Italians do, on average, very little maintenance on their homes,“ Maurizio Sgroi, economic journalist and author of the blog The Walking Debt, told Repubblica.
Even the briefest look at houses for sale in smaller Italian towns and cities reveals that the vast majority of houses available have not been renovated for decades, boasting appliances that belong in a museum, terrible energy efficiency ratings, and often, serious structural issues.
For this very reason, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government will either maintain or introduce generous tax breaks in 2020 in the hope that home buyers will stop being put off by the price and hassle of a major renovation.
Here are some of the standout features of Italy’s 2020 budget vis-a-vis home refurbishments in urban areas (zones A and B):
– A 50 to 65 percent “econonus” tax break for energy renovation of old buildings.
– A 50 percent deduction for renovations with a price ceiling of €96,000 for each property.
– A 50 percent tax deduction when buying energy-efficient home appliances, with a price limit of €10,000. ($11,152)
– A 36 percent “garden bonus” or “green bonus” on personal income tax (Irpef) for anyone spending more than €5,000 ($5600) on the construction of green roofs, irrigation systems and other sustainable add-ons.
– A 50 to 90 percent tax deduction on restoring old buildings’ façades including balconies, windows, eaves, gutters and thermal coating insulation.
For these deductions to apply, the renovation work must be invoiced and paid for electronically.
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