Professional delegate
The professional delegate (professionista delegato) is the person who actually runs the sale in place of the judge. In practice, they are the person a buyer has most contact with throughout the proceedings, and almost nobody knows they exist until it is time to hand in an envelope.
Who can be one
Article 591-bis of the Code of Civil Procedure names three figures: a notary, preferably based in the court’s district, a lawyer or an accountant, registered in the special lists kept at the court.
Delegation is not automatic. The same article provides that the judge does not order it when, having heard the creditors, they see “the need to carry out the sale operations directly to protect the interests of the parties”.
What they do
The list of tasks in article 591-bis runs to thirteen items. These are the ones that affect buyers.
They set the value of the property, taking into account the report of the expert appointed by the judge and any notes filed by the parties.
They handle the advertising of the sale, meaning the notice and its publication on the Portale delle Vendite Pubbliche.
They receive the bids, open the envelopes and run the auction among the bidders, and they declare the award, drawing up the report of the sale proceedings.
They schedule new attempts when a sale goes unsold, and a further one when a successful bidder fails to pay the balance.
They handle the tax registration, the entry in the land registers and the cadastral transfer of the transfer decree, and take care of the formalities for cancelling the attachments and mortgages ordered by the judge. This is the practical answer to “who actually cancels the mortgage”: they do.
They return the deposits to those who did not win, instructing the bank to refund them to the same accounts they came from.
Where you actually go
This is the practical detail that matters most. Article 591-bis requires the notice of sale to state that all the activities that would otherwise be carried out at the court registry or before the judge are carried out by the professional delegate at their office, or at the place indicated in the order.
So the envelope is not taken to the court: it is taken where the notice says. And that is also the address to send any questions about the bidding procedure to.
Three attempts in a year
A little-known provision of the same article: with the delegation order, the judge orders that, within one year of its issue, no fewer than three sale attempts be held.
This is the engine that explains why an unsold lot reappears a few months later at a lower price. How the price reductions work is described in the guide on what happens to the price when an auction goes unsold.
Not to be confused with the other two
Three different professionals are involved in the same proceedings, and they are constantly mixed up.
The expert (or appraiser) wrote the appraisal report: it describes the property and estimates its value. Once that is done, they leave the stage.
The court-appointed custodian manages the property: viewings, upkeep, vacating after the decree. It is the custodian you ask to see the property, not the delegate. Their role is covered in the guide on the court-appointed custodian.
The delegate manages the sale: bids, auction, award and the formalities that follow.
The custodian and the delegate are often the same person, but that is not the rule, and the two roles remain distinct. The notice of sale names both, with their respective contact details.