In twelve years, ruins and dilapidated buildings have increased by 123%, or 342 thousand units: if in 2011 they were “only” 278 thousand, today they exceed 620 thousand. The province of Frosinone is the one with the highest number of houses in ruins: there are almost 32 thousand, about six times more than the ruins present in the nearby and much more populous province of Rome. Confedilizia is doing the math, underlining how the data – in which all the houses that have lost their income-generating capacity are counted because they are obsolete, dilapidated, or with a collapsed roof, partially demolished or in a high state of decay – draw a “map of the economic, social and demographic hardship” of Italy. For this reason, the real estate confederation asks for exempt from IMU the small municipalities with less than 3,000 inhabitants affected by the phenomenonwhich would cost 800 million euros, or at least apply a total exemption – now it is only 50% – for this type of house, which would only cost 50 million. Even large cities are not exempt from the check-up carried out by Confedilizia of the problem, in which the number of dilapidated houses, and in any case not producing income, is increasing. In Rome in 2011 there were 459, today there are 1,820, four times as many. The Capital beats Milan four times in this negative ranking, which has seen a low increase, going from 280 to 366 dilapidated buildings in 12 years. Significant growth also in Naples, which went from 225 to 707 dilapidated buildings in twelve years, a figure that is still lower than the 3,810 of Palermo.
The 620 thousand dilapidated houses in Italy are concentrated above all in the most rural and marginal areas of Italy. If the province of Frosinone leads the ranking, in the Cosenza and Messina areas there are 22,974 and 18,537 respectively. This is a lot if we compare it with the province of Milan, much more populous, which only has 1,764. It is needless to underline that if, instead, we were to analyse the data on the most widespread civilian homes, those of category A/2, we would find inverted positions, in the province of Rome there are 1 million and 129 thousand, almost ten times more than in the Frosinone area, 128,948. After the provinces of Frosinone, Cosenza and Messina, those of Reggio Calabria are also in the top positions, Turin, Cuneo, Foggia, Lecce and Benevento, where ruins and dilapidated buildings are, in each of them, between 14 thousand and 16 thousand. These are therefore areas of the South and areas of the Northern region where the mountains have suffered the greatest economic and demographic decline, Piedmont. However, the most indicative element is probably the growth of these properties over time. The comparison is with 2011, or before the introduction of the Imu, a tax that has significantly affected the increase in these data. If homes, i.e. category A properties, between 2011 and 2023 increased by only 6.5%, from 33 million and 429 thousand to 35 million and 593 thousand, in the case of ruins the increase was a good 123%. Twelve years ago, in fact, there were only 278,121. Their number has increased especially in some provinces where in 2011 such properties were still very few, such as Ferrara, where they increased by 361.7%. Then the largest increases are those of the provinces of Agrigento, Avellino, Foggia and Mantua. In all these cases there has been almost a quadrupling of the number. Above average increases also in the metropolitan city of Naples, +199.5% and in that of Rome, +185.2%. These numbers clearly show that, although, as we have seen, ruins and dilapidated houses are more widespread in the provinces and in rural areas, recently they have begun to be more common than before also in the metropolises.
“It is an increase that we cannot remain blind to” states Confedilizia, according to which the vast majority of the ruins, 88.7%, belong to natural persons: «it is almost only about houses, perhaps belonging to parents or grandparents and then passed to heirs who have now moved elsewhere». This situation characterizes a growing number of other homes that are at risk of total abandonment, often already uninhabitable and unfit for habitation, but not yet categorized as collapsing units in the land registry, and on which, therefore, IMU is paid unlike those collapsing ones which, we recall, are exempt from paying the tax. «It is easy to understand – Confedilizia then proposes – how, especially in some areas, it is a social problem, which is why we are asking for some inexpensive measures, such as, for example, total exemption from IMU for properties located in municipalities with fewer than 3,000 inhabitants, those most affected by the phenomenon. It would cost only 800 million euros, but it would be an important signal for those who live in the areas most affected by the problem. About 50 million, much less, would be needed to completely exempt from paying the same tax the owners of the uninhabitable and unfit for habitation already mentioned, who today only have a 50% reduction in the taxable base. The revenue from this type of house, after all, is a tax with an expiry date, the fate of these houses, which are no longer such, is to become collapsing units». Frosinone, Cosenza and Messina are the provinces with the highest data in absolute terms. The largest increases since 2011 were in the Ferrara area (+362%). Then the largest increases were in the provinces of Agrigento, Avellino, Foggia and Mantua. In all these cases there was almost a quadrupling of the number of dilapidated houses.