Speaker at the Venice Forensic School: A Lecture on the Administrative and Judicial Annulment of Building Permits

Yesterday, 20 April 2026, I had the pleasure of speaking as a lecturer at the Forensic School of the Venice Bar Association, as part of a lecture devoted to the subject of “The Administrative and Judicial Annulment of Building Permits”.

This is a topic that, while belonging to a technical area of administrative law, has very concrete implications for legal practice. Litigation in construction matters, in fact, often sits at the intersection of public interests, the legitimate expectations of private individuals, the protection of third parties, the passage of time and the limits of administrative action.

The Subject of the Lecture

During the session I addressed, in particular, the two distinct levels on which the removal of an unlawful building permit may become relevant.

On the one hand, the administrative level, with reference to the exercise of the power of self-redress and the requirements for ex officio annulment, now governed by Article 21-nonies of Law No. 241 of 1990.

On the other, the judicial level, with regard to the protection of the person affected by the building permit, the distinction between a building permit and a SCIA (certified notification of commencement of activity), the issue of the time limit for bringing proceedings, and the procedural requirements of standing and interest in bringing a claim.

The Approach Adopted

The approach of the lecture was deliberately oriented not only towards the theoretical framework but also towards its practical implications.

The subject of building permits, in fact, cannot be truly understood if reduced to a sequence of abstract categories. It instead demands engagement with very concrete questions: when does the unlawfulness of a permit genuinely allow intervention by way of self-redress, when may a third party rely on a response from the administration, when is a claim timely and what type of harm must be alleged in order to establish an interest in bringing proceedings.

Particular attention was also devoted to the distinction between challenging the existence (an) and the manner (quomodo) of the building works, as well as to the issue of knowledge of the building permit for the purposes of the running of the time limit for bringing proceedings — an area on which administrative case law continues to articulate principles of considerable practical significance.

Practical Implications

A substantial part of the session was devoted to the practical consequences of these principles in drafting a judicial claim.

For this reason, the lecture concluded with a practical exercise built around an appeal to the Regional Administrative Court (T.A.R.) against a building permit, in order to show trainee lawyers not only the theoretical problems underlying the subject, but also the way in which they are concretely reflected in the structure of the defence document: from the statement of facts, to the grounds of law, right through to the application for interim measures and the conclusions.

A Particularly Stimulating Exchange

It was a genuine pleasure for me to engage with the trainee lawyers of the Venice Forensic School on such a dense and important topic.

Moments like these serve as a good reminder that the legal profession does not consist solely in knowledge of the rules, but also in the ability to read the law in its concrete dimension — where it affects the relationships between citizens, public authorities and the territory.

I would like to thank once again the Venice Forensic School, and in particular Avv. Maria Grazia Romeo, for the invitation and for the trust placed in me to address such a delicate subject. I also wish to thank Avv. Domenico Chinello, with whom I shared the speakers’ table.