Giuseppe Conte, here is who would pay the rent for his house: mystery, suspicions, and doubts about the land registry | Libero Quotidiano.it

The former premier’s relationship with his partner Olivia Paladino is not just sentimental. She is, in fact, fully his landlady. The ethereal lady is one of the partners of the family holding company and for months, together with her father Cesare and sister Cristiana, has been putting the Grand Hotel Plaza in Rome up for sale. A gem with an estimated value of over 300 million euros. Negotiations for the sale have been underway for several months and, as we reported yesterday, involve the former premier acting as a real estate agent (at least according to Paolo Zampolli, a man very close to Donald Trump) or, at least, as a legal advisor. But the truth is that another of the holding’s most prestigious properties, currently at the center of a complex attempt to secure it through an intergroup merger, is used by the former premier both as a residence and as an office. In 2021, newspapers wrote that due to Covid, the Paladino family holding had gone into crisis and the sale of Conte and his girlfriend’s home-studio had become necessary. A painful sale foreseen by the debt restructuring project of Immobiliare di Roma Splendido (owner of the building) with some credit institutions and social security and tax authorities. An operation estimated to bring in 11 million euros and which was supposed to be completed by December 2023.

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Since then, nothing has happened. Except that the Guardia di Finanza, when it had to request documents from the former premier, went knocking right on the first floor of that yellow building, where Conte has a spacious office tastefully furnished. The rest of the property is used as a luxury residence and is divided into several apartments. These would be exclusively available to the couple and the service staff. Although the people’s lawyer has never officially moved his residence there. According to Libero, Conte would occupy those luxurious apartments as a welcomed guest and the rent would be paid by one of the companies of the Paladino family holding, Unione esercizi alberghieri di lusso srl, which manages the group’s properties and has a tax debt of 30 million euros (2024 financial statement). But it is not clear if Uneal receives reimbursement from the couple. Yesterday we tried to ask Conte about it, but received no response. In this tangle, one thing is certain: both companies that would each in their own way provide a roof for the former premier are not doing very well.

VALUABLE ASSET
Splendido, put into liquidation in February after years of difficulties, owns 22 real estate units, almost all in Rome and one in Fiano Romano. The portfolio mainly consists of shops and warehouses; there are only two residential units (totaling 5 rooms) and these are not the ones used by Conte. There is also an office of 5.5 rooms, 725 square meters of commercial premises, and 261 for warehouse use. Added to these is the Plaza for a total cadastral income of 1.37 million euros (the Grand Hotel accounts for 94.3 percent). But let’s go into more detail.

In the building where the 5-star couple resides, Immobiliare Splendido owns a large shop on the ground floor (162 square meters spread over three civic numbers). On the left side, it has an apartment classified as a shop (75 square meters) and here Conte’s office should be located. No name appears on the doorbell. On the right side of the building, two shops registered to Immobiliare are located on the second and third floors (199 and 176 square meters respectively), while on the fourth and fifth floors there are the already mentioned 5.5 rooms registered as an office. On the intercom, only the names of three group companies appear, including Immobiliare Splendido.

The building, as already noted, is one of the company’s most valuable assets and that rent paid between companies of the same group, in case of the liquidation company’s bankruptcy, could be considered a lost income or more technically a misappropriation. In fact, a real tenant for those walls should pay no less than 150,000 euros a year, bringing the lost income to about 750,000 euros in just the last five years. Money that Conte certainly does not have to pay, although he probably offers free legal advice, as happened in the ongoing negotiation for the sale of the Plaza. An activity that should allow him, as a good lawyer, to fully understand the problematic situation of his partner’s holding, a group besieged by debts and whose fate seems tied to the sale of the hotel.

Yet the continuous recourse to debt cancellations and the failure to pay current taxes do not seem to provoke in Conte the same indignation he showed in the past towards entrepreneur and former minister Daniela Santanché. The group’s companies’ financial statements have been regularly prepared according to civil law standards, but in the accompanying documents all evaluations have been made from the perspective of business continuity, a line that would exclude the liquidation of the group’s companies. Which, however, happened last February.

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Regarding Immobiliare Splendido, the latest available financial statement is for 2024, showing a negative operating result of 15.4 million euros and total losses of 49 million euros. An additional “red” of 4.8 million for 2025 will have to be added. However, the net equity is positive thanks to the revaluation of the Plaza at a value exceeding 283 million. An operation made possible by decree law 23/2020, issued by the Conte 2 government, the so-called Liquidity Decree. A safety net that was not enough to fix the accounts. The 15 million loss was generated by significant depreciation on properties not covered by revenues and by a 10 million provision to the risk fund for a lawsuit concerning the withdrawal of the former partner not of Immobiliare Splendido, but of its twin Agricola Monastero Santo Stefano Vecchio srl (also put into liquidation and at the center of a very recent merger project by incorporation between companies that in 2025 accumulated about 10 million in total losses).

Among the credits, 29 million are towards group companies, while 23 million in debts are owed to the Treasury. Here there is a “small” difference: the credits have been recorded among financial fixed assets (therefore they are funds not quickly collectible), while the debts had to be settled by the end of 2025. The latest public financial statement of Uneal is also for 2024 and closed with a loss of over 3.7 million which, added to previous ones, brings the total to over 33.7 million. In the document, net equity is negative by over 11.7 million despite revaluations of more than 16.8 million carried out over the years. The second, amounting to almost 4 million, was made under the already mentioned Conte Liquidity Decree. The total losses for 2020-2021-2022 amount to 14.9 million and since net equity is negative, they should have been covered between 2025 and 2027. A difficult task for a company that continues to generate deficits.

WORKS OF ART
The financial statement also included a curious item, relating to some works of art valued at 3.5 million, held “for representation purposes.” But it is among the debts that the most negative news lurks. Tax debts amount to over 30.7 million, of which 1 million is due in 2025 and the other 29.7 million in subsequent years. Reasonably, the company is proceeding with debt cancellation, but nothing is specified about it. With such a heavily indebted company and such losses, the compensation to the sole director Cesare Paladino sounds a bit off, a check for 473,675 euros annually. The manager, on record, complains that the poor result would also derive from the increase in the Plaza rent paid to Immobiliare Splendido, which rose from 2 to 4 million euros. Without this increase, the losses for the company owning Conte’s house would have jumped from 15.4 to 17.4 million.

Who knows if among the properties that have seen their rental value increase is also the former premier’s residence. But on this, we do not feel like betting. Yesterday we tried to ask “Giuseppi” for clarifications on the matter, starting from the apparently incorrect registration of his domicile. We asked him how much the cost of renting home and office amounts to and who covers it and if it is true that Uneal, a company with substantial tax debts, pays for him and his partner. The former premier, so eager to demand answers from others, in this case preferred to retreat into stubborn silence.

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