House received as a gift: what has changed since December 2025

Since December 18, 2025, selling a house received as a gift is no longer the problem it was for twenty years. Law 182/2025, in article 44, rewrote articles 561 and 563 of the civil code: those who buy a gifted property no longer risk losing it to an heir of the donor.

This is a change that almost no one has explained to owners and that makes much of what is written online on the subject obsolete. If you have a property received as a gift and kept it because “it wouldn’t sell anyway,” it’s worth reconsidering.

What the problem was until 2025

Those who receive a gift receive it at the expense of what, upon the donor’s death, will be the inheritance. The law reserves to the closest relatives — spouse, children, or if none, ascendants — a minimum share called the legitimate portion. If lifetime gifts have diminished it, the injured heir can take legal action to obtain what they are entitled to.

Until December 2025 that action could also affect third parties who had meanwhile purchased the gifted property. The heir, within twenty years from the registration of the donation, could act for restitution against the buyer and recover the property — which by then was freed from any mortgages registered.

This created the reputation of a gifted property as a “defective” asset: buyers withdrew and banks were reluctant to grant mortgages, because the mortgage guarantee risked becoming void. The practical result was that gifted houses sold worse, more slowly, and for less.

What has changed

The new article 563 of the civil code establishes that the reduction of the donation does not prejudice third parties to whom the donee has transferred the donated properties. The injured heir no longer recovers the property: they obtain a monetary compensation from the donee.

Simultaneously, the new article 561 establishes that mortgages registered by the donee remain valid. This piece reopens the door to mortgages: the bank financing the purchase knows that its guarantee holds.

In essence, the heir’s protection changes nature: from real — i.e., on the property — it becomes obligatory, i.e., a monetary credit against the person who received the donation. The conflict remains within the family, where it started, and no longer affects those who bought in good faith.

The two exceptions to know

The reform does not eliminate every risk, and it would be misleading to say so.

First: if a reduction claim was registered before your purchase, the third party remains exposed. The registration is public and verifiable: it is exactly one of the checks a notary performs before closing the deed.

Second: those who acquire free of charge — that is, receive by gift themselves — are liable toward the heir within the limits of the advantage received if the donee is insolvent. Full protection concerns acquisition for consideration.

Temporally, the new regime applies to estates opened from December 18, 2025. For earlier ones, a transitional window was provided that is now closed.

Attention: for taxes, the donation is not at all an advantage

Here a widespread error must be corrected, found repeated even on authoritative sites and some outdated notarial sites: the donation is not a cause for exemption from capital gains taxation.

The general rule is that selling a property within five years from purchase generates a taxable capital gain (article 67, paragraph 1, letter b, of the TUIR). Those who received by gift might think the five-year period runs from the donation. It does not: according to article 37, paragraph 38, of decree law 223/2006, the five-year period runs from the donor’s purchase date.

The consequences are symmetrical and must be checked case by case:

• if the donor held the property for more than five years, no capital gain, even if sold immediately after the donation;
• if held less than five years, there is a capital gain, calculated assuming the acquisition cost incurred by the donor, increased by the donation tax.

The case of inheritance is different: inherited property is totally and unconditionally exempt from capital gains taxation, even if sold the next day. Donation and inheritance are not the same fiscal matter.

If you have a gifted house and want to sell it

The first thing to do is recover the documents: the deed of donation, the indication of the date when the donor purchased the property, and a verification of registrations. These are checks to be done before listing for sale, not when the buyer is already at the table.

The second is to decide how to explain it. Until a year ago, the gift origin was an element that discouraged buyers; today it is a circumstance to be explained. Many buyers — and several operators — still have the old framework in mind: being able to show what the law says today, with documents in hand, is the difference between a negotiation that starts uphill and one that starts normally.

In summary

The December 2025 reform removed the main obstacle to selling donated properties: the purchaser for consideration no longer risks restitution of the property, and the donee’s mortgages remain valid. Two exceptions remain — reduction claims already registered and acquisitions free of charge — and the tax rule on capital gains remains, calculated from the donor’s acquisition date, not the donation.

If you have a property received as a gift in Milano San Felice or Segrate and have kept it idle because you were told it would not sell, the situation today is different. We can check your case and tell you where you stand.