Construction law

The last entry is lo stato finale dei lavori, and the trap sits in the middle word. An English reader sees stato, hears « state », and reads the term as the final state of the works — a description of the finished building, its condition on the day it was handed over. That is not what it is. In the Italian of a building site, lo stato is a written statement: a schedule drawn up by measuring what has actually been executed and pricing it item by item. The commonest form is lo stato di avanzamento dei lavori, the interim statement that supports each payment on account, and lo stato finale is the last of the series, the one that settles the sum due. The English term is not a state but an account. « The final account » is the document agreed at the end of a contract, and it counts metres rather than describing condition. Both senses of stato do live side by side — lo stato dei luoghi really is the condition of a place — so the word alone never says which one is meant.