Restricted housing in South Tyrol: who is allowed to buy

The restriction is about who lives there

This is the distinction almost everybody gets wrong. The restriction in article 39 of provincial law 9/2018 does not say “only a resident may buy this flat”: it says the dwelling has to be occupied by someone meeting certain requirements, and it sets deadlines by which it must be occupied.

For anybody buying a home to live in, the difference is academic: without the requirements you cannot use it, and a property you cannot use is not a bargain at any price. It becomes concrete in two cases — buying for a child or a parent who does meet them, and moving here for a job. Both are situations to have the municipality confirm before making an offer, not after.

The requirements, in practice

One of these is enough, and it is enough that one member of the household meets it: having been resident for at least five years in a South Tyrolean municipality; or working in a municipality of the province for the whole period of occupation; or having been resident in the province for at least ten consecutive years before moving away.

Note the second: a job is enough. Somebody moving to South Tyrol for work does not have to wait five years to buy a restricted dwelling — this is the most common misunderstanding, and it costs many families the most affordable part of the market. Citizenship is not the test: the law looks at the tie to the territory, not at the passport.

How to check before making an offer

Ask for the land register extract and read sheet C. The restriction is noted against the property, alongside mortgages and easements: either it is there or it is not, regardless of what the seller remembers. It is the document we obtain before publishing, and one any serious agency will show you without being asked twice.

If the restriction is there and you are unsure about the requirements, the office to ask is the municipality where the property sits: it certifies the grounds for the restriction and handles both its registration and its removal. A written answer before the offer is worth an entire negotiation.

What you cannot do with it

You cannot let it to tourists, you cannot hold it as a second home, and you cannot leave it empty indefinitely: the law sets deadlines for occupation and provides administrative penalties where they are missed, with the municipality supervising. If you are buying with short-let income in mind, a restricted dwelling is the wrong choice and there is no way around it.

You can resell it, and you can let it to people meeting the same requirements you had to meet. The restriction follows the property, not the person: whoever buys from you will have to satisfy it in turn. That is what narrows the market and keeps the price below that of an unrestricted dwelling.

Is it worth it? It turns on one question

If you are looking for a home to live in and you meet the requirements, the restriction is almost always an advantage: you are buying in a market that non-residents and investors cannot enter — without the competition that pushes prices up elsewhere in the province. That is precisely what the rule is for.

If instead you expect to resell soon, or your employment here is not settled, the sum has to be redone: you will be selling back to the same narrow public, and how long a restricted dwelling takes to sell depends on how many households with those requirements happen to be looking in that municipality at that moment.