Property ownership and the right to live in a property after a separation can clash. A recent ruling by the Court of Velletri (ruling no. 125, Third Section, dated 14 January 2026) clarifies a fundamental principle for the security of sales: anyone who purchases a house from a separated spouse takes precedence over the ex-wife if the latter has not registered the court order in the property registers.

In the past, the law allowed the spouse who was awarded the home to remain there for nine years without any formalities. Today, this scenario has changed radically. Priority is given to whoever registers the deed first, as the certainty of public registers must prevail over the private needs of the spouses. The current system no longer allows the trust of a buyer who, with ordinary diligence, verifies the absence of restrictions before paying the price to be sacrificed.

The law stipulates that the order by which the judge awards the family home to one of the spouses must be made public. This is done by recording it in the property registers (Art. 337-sexies of the Civil Code). If this step is omitted, the right to live in the house remains a private matter that cannot be enforced against anyone who purchases the property from the legitimate owner. In practical terms, if the husband who owns the villa sells it to a third-party couple and they register the purchase before the wife registers her assignment, the wife loses the right to remain in the property. The conflict is therefore resolved in a race against time:
the winner is whoever arrives first at the Land Registry;
the untranscribed title is completely ineffective against third parties who have purchased the property;
The protection of the family cannot invalidate a regular purchase (Art. 2644 of the Civil Code).
The Court of Velletri explained that the protection of children and the weaker spouse must be balanced with the certainty of legal transactions. It is not possible to expose a citizen who purchases in good faith to a sacrifice that he or she could not have foreseen. If no restrictions emerge from the land registry searches, the purchaser has the right to take possession of their only home. The assignee no longer enjoys automatic protection for nine years, as was the case before the reforms (Law 54/2006 and Legislative Decree 154/2013). For example, a couple who buy a small villa to use as their main residence and find no registered encumbrances cannot be evicted by an assignment order discovered only after the deed of sale. The buyer's diligence in consulting public registers is the limit beyond which the protection of the family cannot go.