Bologna, August 27, 2026 – In the ads it appears as a “studio apartment”, but in reality it is a basement room, illegally used as a residence. A cellar in via del Pratello, inside a building classified as of cultural and testimonial interest.
It is one of the cases reported in the list of building abuses that the Municipality of Bologna, in relation to last July, sent to the Metropolitan City, the Emilia-Romagna Region, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Infrastructure.
The communication from Palazzo D’Accursio contains the “reports communicated by judicial police officers and agents regarding works or subdivisions carried out illegally and the related work suspension orders,” reads the document.
“There is evidence of the systematic activation of works aimed at creating an autonomous real estate unit, effectively used for residential purposes,” explains the sheet related to the abuses.
The confirmation of the residential use derives not only “from the furnishings present on site (kitchen, furniture, refrigerator, and air conditioner),” the sheet continues, but also from an ad in which the property “is offered as a ‘studio apartment,’ with images showing a housing unit composed of a single room used as a kitchen, sleeping area, and living room, plus a separate bathroom.”
The sheet reports the start of the procedure for “lack of title,” in application of the regional law on building activity control and in particular article 10, which governs the protection of protected buildings.
Other similar cases
Last July in Modena on the well-known site Immobiliare.it a small “apartment for rent in the city center of 7 square meters” appeared. Basically two small rooms with a microscopic bathroom attached to the bed and a kitchenette with an electric stove, then a fridge in the small space connecting the two rooms. The contract is for 4+4 years.
Staying in Bologna, instead, also in summer the umpteenth ‘crazy offer’ from the real estate world appeared, a phenomenon that unfortunately is always growing in Bologna: 1,200 euros per month to live in a basement. The ad, published on Facebook on the page ‘Sei di Bologna se’, offered a rental in via Filippo Turati, Saragozza area, and was ‘open’ only to a couple of female students and non-smokers.
From the photos, in fact, it was seen that it was a basement, with ‘wolf-mouth’ windows in almost every room, except for the bathroom where the window even seemed to be blind. Six hours after the ad was published, given the volume of comments, the owner removed it.
Last year instead, a studio apartment in the Santo Stefano district for the amount of 550 euros per month for 17 square meters.
Following this trail of episodes in the city: in 2024 there was the case of a room, just 8 square meters, rented for 600 euros per month, emerged from an investigation by Carlino.
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