How to find out whether a debtor owns property before starting debt recovery

In short: to find out whether a debtor owns property, you search its name, or its tax code (codice fiscale), in the Land Registry (Catasto): it is public data. If the debtor is a company, the Decision report (€49) shows the properties registered to the company and to its relevant shareholders and directors; if it is an individual, the Extended Person Check (€49) runs a national search in the Land Registry. A registered property is an asset fact: it does not say whether it is free of mortgages or encumbrances; for that, a mortgage inspection is needed.

Why search for properties before taking action

Before an injunction order (decreto ingiuntivo) or any recovery action, the practical question is this: if I win, does the debtor have assets I can recover against? Properties are the easiest assets to identify, because the Land Registry records who owns them. Knowing this beforehand does not decide by itself whether to act, but it changes how you proceed: a reminder, a repayment plan proposal, a guarantee to request, or an assessment with your lawyer of the cost of the action compared with what you can realistically recover.

This guide covers only properties. For the complete picture of a debtor company (net equity, share capital, protests, proceedings, beneficial owner), see the guide on how to check the assets of a debtor company.

Debtor company: properties of the company and of relevant shareholders

When the debtor is a company, two different levels matter:

• Properties registered to the company: these are its assets, the ones a creditor of the company can recover against.
• Properties registered to relevant shareholders and directors: these are not assets of the company. In a limited liability company (srl), for company obligations only the company answers with its assets (art. 2462 of the Civil Code, except for the particular cases provided by the same article). They become relevant to your debt if, for example, that shareholder has signed a guarantee (fideiussione) in your favour: your lawyer will tell you if and how.

The Decision report (€49) queries the Land Registry for the company and, for each relevant shareholder or director, also for the person. The same report includes everything in the Check tier: beneficial owner, shareholders and directors, estimated operating credit line, protests and insolvency proceedings, comparison with the sector. In addition, company relationships (the offices and shareholdings of the shareholders in other companies) and reclassified financial statements. The cadastral data is returned as a count of buildings and land by city and municipality, with the date of the check: it is not a list with sheet, parcel and cadastral income of each property.

At purchase, you declare the purpose "I need to recover a debt" and the amount owed to you. The report compares that amount with the company's estimated operating credit line: two numbers placed side by side, not a forecast of what the debtor will do.

Debtor individual: the Extended Person Check

If the debtor is an individual (a private customer, a professional, the guarantor of a contract), the Extended Person Check (€49) searches for registered properties with a national search in the Land Registry, starting from name and tax code. The same report includes protests, adverse records (pregiudizievoli) and proceedings against the person (adverse records as presence or number, not the detail of each individual entry), and the offices and shareholdings the person holds in other companies.

For an individual, the check is not open to everyone: before the search you must state one of the legitimate purposes provided by our terms. For a debt, the two relevant ones are:

• "Verification of a professional or contractual relationship in progress or to be established with the indicated person", when the debt arises from a contract with them (a supply, a service, an assignment).
• "Verification of a guarantor, surety or person called to provide a personal guarantee", when the person has guaranteed someone else's debt. See also how to check a guarantor or surety.

Excluded, among others, are the handling of a private dispute not linked to a professional or contractual relationship and any form of monitoring of the person.

What the Land Registry data does not say: mortgages, encumbrances, value

A property registered to the debtor is not automatically a property from which the debt can be recovered. The Land Registry says who the owner is; it does not say whether mortgages, attachments or seizures already encumber the property, nor what it is worth on the market. Also, the count in the report does not indicate whether the ownership is full or for a share: for that, the cadastral search is needed. This is why the report never uses the word "seizable": that would be a statement the data does not allow.

The encumbrances on properties (mortgages, attachments, seizures, judicial claims) are read in the property registers, through a mortgage inspection at the Agenzia delle Entrate. This is the next step, once you know whether and where the debtor owns property: see formalities and adverse transcriptions at the Land Registry office (Conservatoria) with examples for the channels and limits of the search.

The cadastral search by subject: the official channel

The same data can be consulted directly at the Agenzia delle Entrate. Cadastral information is public, except for floor plans (planimetrie), which are reserved to those entitled over the property or to their delegates.

• Online: the "Visura catastale" service of the Agenzia delle Entrate allows free access even to those who are not the owner of the property, with SPID, CIE or CNS digital identity. It returns the current searches by subject, that is, the properties on which the person sought currently holds real rights (the historical search by subject is not available online). The search covers the entire national territory, excluding the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano.
• At the counter: at any provincial Territory Office of the Agency or at the local cadastral offices at the Municipalities. For properties you do not own, the special cadastral fee applies, which the Agency states as €3.

The official search is more detailed than our data (identifiers, classification, address of each property). The report serves a different purpose: in a single check, together with protests, proceedings and, for a company, the relevant shareholders, it tells you if and where to search. If the result is "no property", you have saved the rest of the work; if properties appear, you know in which municipalities to look further with the cadastral search and the mortgage inspection.

How to use the result

• No property and other warning signs (negative net equity, protests, insolvency proceedings): a court action may cost more than what you can realistically recover. Assess alternative solutions with your lawyer, such as a repayment plan. If insolvency proceedings are under way, ask them how the debt is to be asserted in that setting.
• Properties registered to the company: check with the mortgage inspection whether they are already encumbered, before estimating what you can recover.
• Properties only in the name of shareholders: ask your lawyer whether you have a basis to recover against them, for example a guarantee signed by the shareholder.

Veryfy is not a law firm: the report shows public facts with source and date, never a judgement on the debtor nor a forecast of the outcome of the recovery. The decision remains yours, ideally together with a lawyer.