Sorrento: An illegal house has been demolished after 19 years of legal battles.

Sorrento – A lengthy legal and administrative case involving illegal construction on the Sorrento Coast concluded yesterday, Friday, August 7th. An illegal residential building, owned by Michelangelo Scannapieco and Maria Elefante, was demolished at Via Santa Lucia 27 in Sorrento, in compliance with a final order issued by the Torre Annunziata Court.

The demolition implements sentence no. 138 of February 28, 2007, which became final on December 11 of the same year, bringing to a close a process that had lasted nearly nineteen years and featured numerous attempts to postpone or avoid the execution of the measure.

An unsafe building in a restricted area

The demolished building had a volume of approximately 400 cubic meters and had been built in an area with particularly protected urban planning and environmental protections.

The building in fact fell within an agricultural-environmental area according to the Municipal Urban Planning Plan, in the settlement and environmental redevelopment zone envisaged by the Territorial Urban Planning Plan, as well as being subject to landscape restrictions pursuant to the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code and to seismic restrictions.

Precisely because of these characteristics, the works had been deemed non-pardonable and lacking the necessary requirements to obtain any form of amnesty.

The ignored ordinances and the acquisition of the municipal heritage

Over the years, the Municipality of Sorrento had issued several demolition orders, which remained unenforced.

Failure to comply resulted in the property being transferred to the municipal entity's non-disposable assets. Despite this, the property remained in the hands of the owners, giving rise to a lengthy administrative and legal dispute.

From self-demolition to appeals: all the rejected attempts

In 2024, the Prosecutor's Office authorized a car demolition requested by the owners themselves. The permit, however, was later revoked after it was determined that the work had only been partially carried out.

The owners subsequently submitted an application for a declaration of conformity pursuant to Article 36-bis of the Consolidated Building Act, which was rejected by the Municipality of Sorrento in September 2025.

The subsequent appeal to the Campania Regional Administrative Court was also unsuccessful: on May 12, 2026, the administrative judges rejected both the request to annul the provision and the precautionary request for suspension.

The latest attempt came before the Enforcement Judge of the Torre Annunziata Court, who, on June 22, rejected both the request to revoke or suspend the demolition order and a new application for self-demolition.

The intervention of the police forces

Once all procedures were completed, the demolition operations of the structure were completed on August 7th.

The operation was coordinated by the Sorrento Public Safety Commissioner with the support of the Carabinieri, the Municipal Police, and the Provincial Fire Brigade, ensuring the safety of the operations.

A signal in the fight against illegal building

The demolition represents a further step in the Torre Annunziata Public Prosecutor's Office's efforts to combat illegal construction, a phenomenon that continues to be one of the main problems of the Sorrento Peninsula and the Vesuvian area.

This case confirms that, even after a lengthy legal process lasting nearly two decades and numerous attempts to obtain amnesties or suspensions, properties declared irreparable and built in areas subject to specific environmental and landscape constraints are destined, once all legal remedies have been exhausted, to be definitively demolished to restore urban planning legality and protect the land.