Buying in Sardinia: Coastal Rules, Seismic Zone and the Deed

Buying a property in Sardinia follows the same national rules as anywhere in Italy: the preliminary contract, the notarial deed and the purchase taxes do not change from region to region. This page does not repeat that process. The steps themselves are described on Sicily Real Estate, the sister portal, in the guide How Buying Property Works in Sicily; the process is national and applies in Sardinia in the same way.

What follows is only what is genuinely Sardinian: the regional landscape plan that governs the coast, the fixed distances and outright bans that come with it, the island's seismic classification, and the two conformity requirements a buyer meets at the notary. Terra Mia Immobiliare states the legal mechanisms only — it does not check individual listings against them and does not give legal advice.

The Piano Paesaggistico Regionale and the fascia costiera

Coastal building in Sardinia is governed by the Piano Paesaggistico Regionale (PPR), the regional landscape plan, definitively approved in September 2006 on the basis of the regional salvacoste law L.R. 8/2004. The 2006 approval covers the coastal area only — the so-called first ambito omogeneo — not the whole island.

The fascia costiera — the coastal strip — has no single fixed width. It is the perimeter drawn in the PPR's own cartography, classified as a landscape asset in its own right (bene paesaggistico d'insieme) and declared a strategic resource requiring integrated planning and management. Whether a property lies inside it therefore cannot be read off its distance from the sea alone.

Inside the fascia costiera, on unbuilt land, any transformation intervention is precluded except in the cases the plan's implementing norms themselves list (art. 20 of the norme tecniche di attuazione, 2006). The same article additionally bans outright:

• new extra-urban roads of more than two lanes, save for the narrow exceptions stated in the norms,
• new industrial building and large-scale retail development,
• new campsites, accommodation linked to golf courses, and serviced camper areas.

Certain already-urbanised areas are excluded from the fascia costiera as a landscape asset: zone A and B, and zone C, D and G covered by effective implementation plans built in whole or in part (art. 19 of the norms, 2006). Whether an exclusion applies to a specific property is a question for the comune and a qualified technician, not for this page.

The fixed coastal distances

Independently of the fascia costiera perimeter, the plan's norms declare coastal land within 300 metres of the shoreline — 150 metres on the minor islands — unbuildable (inedificabile) and subject to a bond of integral conservation, even where the land lies elevated above the sea (art. 12 of the norms, 2006, with the exclusions stated there).

Above the regional plan sits national law: art. 142 of D.Lgs. 42/2004 makes coastal territories within 300 metres of the shoreline, including land elevated above the sea, areas of landscape interest by law, subject to the landscape-authorisation regime. Areas that on 6 September 1985 were already delimited as zone A or B in the planning instruments are excluded.

A transitional discipline applies as long as a comune's municipal plan (PUC) has not been adapted to the PPR: in comuni without an approved PUC, within 2,000 metres of the shoreline — 500 metres on the minor islands — only interventions contained in implementation plans that were already approved and conventioned by 10 August 2004 may proceed (art. 15 of the norms, 2006).

Checking a specific parcel

Whether a specific parcel falls inside the fascia costiera or another PPR layer can be checked on the Region's official geoportal: the SardegnaMappe PPR webGIS shows the coastal landscape ambiti at a scale of 1:25,000, and the plan's vector layers can be downloaded as shapefiles (Sardegna Geoportale, consulted August 2026).

Terra Mia Immobiliare does not check listings against these maps: statements on planning status in a listing come from the seller alone. Certainty about a specific parcel comes from the comune, from the geoportal and from the buyer's own technician and notary.

Seismic classification

Italy's seismic classification (ordinance OPCM 3274 of 20 March 2003) divides the country into four zones, of which zone 4 is the least hazardous. Sardinia is classified in zone 4 and is regarded by the national earthquake-defence studies as a low-seismicity area.

This is a hazard classification, not a safety guarantee, and it says nothing about the structural condition of an individual building. What state a specific property is in remains a question for a qualified technician chosen by the buyer.

Two conformity requirements at the deed

At the notarial deed, Italian law makes the transfer of an existing urban building null and void unless the deed contains the cadastral identification, the reference to the floor plans filed in the cadastre and the owners' declaration that cadastral data and plans match the actual state of the property — or, in place of that declaration, a conformity attestation issued by a qualified technician (conformità catastale, art. 29, comma 1-bis, of L. 52/1985).

In addition, deeds between living persons transferring rights on buildings whose construction began after 17 March 1985 are null unless the seller declares the references of the building permit or of a permit issued under an amnesty (conformità urbanistica, art. 46 of D.P.R. 380/2001). Both requirements are verified by the notary; a buyer in Sardinia meets them in exactly this form.

The one-off costs met at the same appointment — the notary's fee, registration tax and the fixed taxes — are set out in the national guide Notary Fees and Purchase Costs in Italy, which applies unchanged in Sardinia.

Regional support programmes for buying and renovating, and the tax regime for holders of foreign pensions, are covered in the guide Incentives and Funding in Sardinia; the island's provinces, geography and transport links are described in Sardinia at a Glance.