New Rules for Declaring Mediation Expenses in Real Estate Transactions

Starting from January 12, 2025, a significant regulatory change took effect regarding the declaration of expenses incurred for real estate mediation. With Law No. 203 of December 13, 2024, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on December 28, 2024, paragraph 22, letter d) of Article 35 of Legislative Decree 223/2006 has been amended. This update provides contracting parties with greater flexibility in declaring mediation expenses while maintaining fiscal transparency.

What changes?

Until now, parties involved in a real estate transaction were required to declare the amount of commission paid to the mediator. With the new regulation, contracting parties now have two alternative options:

• Declare the exact amount of expenses incurred for the mediation service.

• Indicate the invoice number issued by the mediator and certify that the invoiced amount matches the actual expense incurred.

In any case, the payment methods of the commission must be specified. It is clear that the primary objective is to ensure greater financial confidentiality between the parties involved in the transaction. In real estate practice, commissions can vary depending on agreements between the mediator and each party, with potential differences between the seller and the buyer.

The legislator deemed it appropriate to protect such confidentiality, preventing one party from becoming aware of the amount paid by the other to the mediator. At the same time, the new regulation continues to ensure fiscal control by requiring expense traceability through an invoice and a declaration confirming correspondence with the amount paid.

Conditions for applying the new option

In order to take advantage of the new declaration method, the commission must be fully paid at the time of the contract signing. The regulation does not allow discrepancies between the invoice amount and the payment made. Therefore, it is not possible to declare only part of the commission, although it remains possible to indicate installment payments following the previous method.

The two parties can choose different methods

Another interesting aspect of the reform is that the contracting parties can choose different declaration methods. While one party may opt for the traditional declaration, specifying the exact amount, the other may choose the new option of referencing the invoice and confirming that the invoiced amount matches the expense incurred.

This regulatory change introduces an important balance between confidentiality and fiscal transparency, allowing contracting parties to choose how to declare real estate mediation expenses.