Application At The Town Hall Of Residence
As it is known, if the interested party resides in Italy, there is the possibility of establishing the procedure for the recognition of the possession of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis at the Municipality of residence with a special application addressed to the Mayor.
Therefore, as it is obvious, even in this case the applicant must first be in possession of the entire documentation attesting to descent from Italian ancestors which, attached to the application, will be submitted to the evaluation of the civil register officer of the municipality of residence.
The filing of the application with the municipal office therefore represents the start of the procedure, which will be followed by an inquiry phase and will be concluded with the issuance of a final measure. The deadline for the completion of the procedure, according to the general principle of Article 2 paragraph 4 L. 241/1990 for particularly complex procedures, is identified as 180 days. Therefore, higher terms, as defined by some municipalities by means of special regulations, are not considered justified by any rule. If, due to problems emerging from the analysis of the documentation (e.g., inconsistencies or errors in names, surnames, places and dates of birth of ancestors) it is not possible to reconstruct the line of ancestry with absolute certainty, the registrar will issue a measure suspending the proceedings or a notice of rejection pursuant to Art. 10-bis L. 241/1990. The fruitless expiration of the ten-day period for the relevant observations or additions will result in the rejection of the application. Similar fate in case the complexities are not considered resolved even following the clarifications provided.
Finally, it should be noted that the rejection of an application does not prevent the submission of a subsequent one, once in possession of the documentation directing the issue referred to in the first rejection. In this regard, it is recommended to pay close attention, since there is a common practice on the part of some municipalities not to return the original documents attached to the application, regardless of the outcome of the proceeding, retaining them in their archives for reasons related to the procedure of protocol of the documents.
Conversely, in the presence of all legal requirements, the proceedings will conclude with the acceptance of the application with a measure recognizing that the applicant (and any minor children) is an Italian citizen from birth and providing for transcriptions and further communications.