Conservatoria adverse records (pregiudizievoli di Conservatoria): what they are, examples, and how to see them for a company too

In short: Conservatoria adverse records (also called “adverse records from the Conservatoria” or “Conservatoria events”) are entries and transcriptions in the property registers that encumber a specific property and limit the owner's free disposal of it: the main ones are the judicial mortgage, the real estate attachment, the conservatory seizure and certain transcribed judicial claims. They are seen with a mortgage inspection at the Agenzia delle Entrate, which can concern any subject, individual or company.

What are the Conservatoria adverse records

The term “adverse” (pregiudizievole) in the Conservatoria refers to a formality (entry or transcription) that prejudices, that is, makes less free or less marketable, the position of the owner of a property. It is not a category with a closed list defined by a single article of law: it is a descriptive term that in practice covers four types of formality, each with a different legal basis:

• Judicial mortgage (ipoteca giudiziale), registered on the basis of a judgment ordering payment of a sum (art. 2818 Civil Code). A payment order declared enforceable is also a title for registering a judicial mortgage (art. 655 Code of Civil Procedure): this is how a payment order comes to appear at the Conservatoria.
• Real estate attachment (pignoramento immobiliare), transcribed at the start of forced enforcement on the asset (art. 555 Code of Civil Procedure for the form of the act and the transcription). The subsequent decree transferring ownership, closing the enforcement procedure, is also subject to transcription (art. 2643, no. 6, Civil Code).
• Conservatory seizure (sequestro conservativo), transcribed when a creditor obtains the precautionary measure to block the asset's availability in advance, even before a final judgment (art. 2905 Civil Code).
• Transcribed judicial claim (domanda giudiziale trascritta), when a lawsuit is pending that, if upheld, would affect ownership or other real rights over the property, in the cases exhaustively listed by law (art. 2653 Civil Code).

Commercial reports often also list, among the Conservatoria adverse records, the mortgage registered by the tax collection agent (agente della riscossione) on the debtor's properties on the basis of the tax roll (ruolo) (art. 77 of Presidential Decree (D.P.R.) 602/1973), which is added to the four formalities above.

What is meant by a prejudicial transcription

A prejudicial transcription means the annotation, in the property registers kept by the Conservatoria (today the Real Estate Advertising Service (Servizio di pubblicità immobiliare) of the Provincial Office – Territory (Ufficio provinciale – Territorio) of the Agenzia delle Entrate), of one of the acts or measures listed above against a specific property. The transcription has a publicity function: it makes the act enforceable against third parties, that is, anyone who consults the registers on that property — a potential buyer, a bank assessing a mortgage, a company checking a supplier — sees the encumbrance and is bound by it in turn, even if they were not otherwise aware of it. It is the general principle underlying the transcription system provided for by the Civil Code (arts. 2643 and following), applied here to a specific case: an act or claim that “prejudices” the free disposal of the asset for whoever owns it.

Concrete examples of Conservatoria adverse events

To understand what they mean in practice, here are realistic examples for each of the four formalities:

• Judicial mortgage: a supplier obtains a judgment in court against an indebted company for an unpaid invoice, and registers it as a mortgage on the company's warehouse. Even before starting an attachment, this already partly blocks the free sale or refinancing of the property.
• Real estate attachment: a bank, after an enforceable judgment on an unpaid mortgage, starts forced enforcement by transcribing the attachment on the mortgaged property: from that moment the property is formally subject to judicial sale.
• Conservatory seizure: a creditor fears that the debtor, while awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit still in progress, could sell the only property in his name to avoid a future enforcement, and therefore obtains a conservatory seizure even before the final judgment, to freeze the asset in advance.
• Transcribed judicial claim: a lawsuit is in progress to claim ownership of a property (for example, over a contested donation); the transcription of the claim warns anyone who consults the registers that that ownership is the subject of a dispute not yet decided.

Conservatoria adverse records on a company: how to see them

The property registers are organised on a personal basis: you search by subject, and the inspection can concern any subject, individual or legal entity. For a company, this means searching by the company's name or tax code, not by the name of the owner or of the shareholders: formalities against a shareholder of an srl are in the shareholder's name, those against the company are in the company's name. Two practical limits to know before you start:

• The search is by district: the inspection by subject returns the formalities relating to properties located in the territorial district searched. If you do not know where the company has properties, you must first find out, or repeat the search across several districts.
• Without properties there is nothing to find: Conservatoria adverse records presuppose a property registered in the subject's name. A company without properties may have protests or insolvency proceedings, but no formality at the Conservatoria against it.

If the company you are dealing with is your own, consulting your own properties is free (see below). If it is a customer, a supplier or a debtor, an inspection on a third-party subject is needed, and it is paid.

How to obtain a mortgage extract (ispezione ipotecaria)

The information in the property registers is public, and access is open to all. The official channels of the Agenzia delle Entrate are four:

• At the counter: at the Real Estate Advertising Service of a Provincial Office – Territory, by submitting Form 310 (a simplified version also exists). For the computerised period, an inspection of another district can be requested from any office. At the counter the inspection is requested on any subject, so also on a company.
• Online, on properties not owned by you: the service “Mortgage inspections of properties not owned by you”, with access via SPID, CIE or CNS and payment via pagoPA, allows searches by individual, by deed, or by complete cadastral data of the property. The Agenzia states that it is not currently possible to set up a search by legal entity: for a company, online, you can search only starting from the cadastral data of a property already known. The fee is the current rate reduced by 20 per cent.
• Online, on your own properties: the service “Extracts, floor plans and mortgage inspections of your own properties” is free and exempt from taxes for the properties of which the applicant is the owner, including as a share. It is also available to companies, bodies and associations registered with Entratel or Fisconline.
• Through accredited professionals: notaries, lawyers and extract professionals accredited to the platform access the Agency's Sister platform, which allows the telematic inspection also of non-digitised deeds and paper titles.

Two limits apply to all channels: online, only the formalities of the computerised period can be consulted, which varies from office to office (for earlier periods you must go to the competent office); and the areas where the land-register system (sistema tavolare) applies are excluded (the provinces of Trento, Bolzano, Trieste and Gorizia and a few other municipalities), where the registers are different.

“Protesto pregiudizievole”: does this term really exist?

In the technical sense, no: a protest and an adverse Conservatoria event are two different public data items, from different sources. The protest is the act by which a public official records the non-payment of a bill of exchange or cheque, published in the Protest Register (Registro Informatico dei Protesti) of the Chambers of Commerce: it concerns a negotiable instrument, not a property. The Conservatoria adverse event, by contrast, concerns a formality registered or transcribed on a specific immovable property. They are two distinct checks, often cited together because they appear in the same type of commercial check. For the definition of both, see protests and adverse records: what they are; for adverse records that do not sit at the Conservatoria, see court-ordered adverse records and the difference from those of the Conservatoria.

Mortgage extract or commercial report: what changes

The mortgage inspection is the direct source: it shows the individual formality, the property, the date and the parties in favour and against. A commercial information report is a different step: it collects signals from several sources in a single check, but not always with the same level of detail or coverage as the original source. At least one commercial information provider states in its public methodology note that its database of Conservatoria adverse records is limited to acts in favour of banks, financial intermediaries and tax collection agents, and that it is updated with a frequency ranging from weekly to annual. If you need to know with certainty what encumbers a specific property, for example before accepting it as collateral, the route is the mortgage inspection on that property.

What you can check with Veryfy before the mortgage extract

Before paying for a mortgage inspection on a company, it is useful to know whether it has more immediate public signals. The micro-product Negative records and insolvency proceedings (€5.90) shows protests and insolvency proceedings against a specific company, with source and date. The full report, from €19, includes them together with the beneficial owner, shareholders, directors and the estimated operating credit line; the Decisione band (€49) adds the properties registered in the company's name (Catasto), indicated as the number of buildings and plots of land per municipality: a first indication of where to look in the Conservatoria. None of these products replaces the mortgage inspection to know which formalities encumber a specific property. If the subject to check is an individual (a guarantor, a shareholder), see adverse records on a person.