Published on 3 May 2021
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 444/18
Giampaolo GENTILI and Elisabetta GENTILI
against Italy
lodged on 15 December 2017
communicated on 16 April 2021
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The case concerns the amount of compensation due to the applicants following the expropriation of their property in view of the construction of sport facilities. The domestic courts calculated the expropriation compensation based on the value of non-building land, departing from the court-appointed expert report, which qualified the property as building land, given that that plot of land was designated to serve as a compensatory area (“standard edilizio”) within the meaning of Article 3 of Government Decree no. 1444/1968, that is, it was assigned to host public-interest services benefitting the adjacent residential area. The domestic courts further rejected the applicants’ request that the award of compensation be adjusted to offset the effects of inflation.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Have the applicants been deprived of their property in accordance with the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular, did the deprivation of property impose an excessive individual burden on the applicants on account of the amount awarded to them as expropriation compensation (see Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) [GC], no. 36813/97, ECHR 2006 V)?
The parties are invited to answer this question taking into account:
– (i) whether the expropriation compensation was calculated taking into account, to a reasonable degree, the property’s specific features (Kozacıoğlu v. Turkey [GC], no. 2334/03, § 72, 19 February 2009), including economic factors influencing its actual market value (Vistiņš and Perepjolkins v. Latvia (just satisfaction) [GC], no. 71243/01, §§ 37-38, 25 March 2014; Preite v. Italy, no. 28976/05, § 51, 17 November 2015; and Kanaginis v. Greece, no. 27662/09, § 51, 27 October 2016);
– (ii) whether the expropriation compensation, albeit not adjusted for inflation, complied with the Court’s relevant principles (see Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) [GC], no. 36813/97, § 258, ECHR 2006 V, and Chinnici v. Italy (no. 2), no. 22432/03, §§ 44-46, 62-63, 14 April 2015);
– (iii) whether the domestic courts arbitrarily failed to consider the arguments put forward by the applicants through their counsel as regards the criteria to be used for estimating the market value of the expropriated land (Jokela v. Finland, no. 28856/95, 21 May 2002).
2. The applicants are requested to submit to the Court a copy of the additional report prepared by the court-appointed expert Mr Cappelli, which was deposited with the registry of the Florence Court of Appeal on 20 January 2011.
APPENDIX
No.
Applicant’s Name
Birth year
Nationality
Place of residence
1
Giampaolo GENTILI
1965
Italian
Prato
2
Elisabetta GENTILI
1963
Italian
Prato
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