Buying our home
Buying that dream house in Italy is for a lot of people a way to purchase a holiday home, and for many also used as an opportunity to use that property as a rental, make some income and to keep the house lived in while not there. I’m publishing this post to give a case study: Buying our home
We have been resident in Italy since the early 2000’s, our scope of buying was to have our own home and get away from renting. starting in around 2020 we decided to buy our own place. Our budget wasn’t enormous so we knew from the outset we’d be looking at a property to renovate and make our own.
After lots of searching and visits to many properties (some with multiple ownership due to subdivision of ownership between family members) we found what we thought was an ideal house, the biggest problem with that property was that new floors had been installed and other modifications made without planning permission. The owners of that property eventually agreed to go through the process of legalising the modifications, BUT once we went to meet them with their and our Geometri this was rescinded and they claimed we should buy with what is called a compromesso in the purchase documents, this immediately rang alarm bells with both us and our Geometra. They weren’t moving on this point and in the end we walked out of the meeting together with our Geometra to many insults from the other parties. Be careful! That house is still unsold.
Next up came what is now our house. We own a portion of a larger building, including a portion of the cellar which was converted into a rainwater cistern in the late 1950’s. The cellar is divided between the two properties and the cistern was actually purchased by the previous owners prior to that but without a notarised act . The big complication here was that there were no actual plan drawings of the house lodged in the land registry so when our Geometra began his checks he notified us of this (I can hear your thoughts! how did they get out of that one?)
First step
Verify that the cistern didn’t figure on the plans of the other house that makes up the building. That done (it didn’t) we were able to receive a declaration from the previous owner that the sale was indeed true and to today the cistern is part of our house (we now use it as a cellar with access through a trapdoor). This was a lengthy process as it was necessary to contact the owners of the house next door and contact their Geometra, it also required research in the provincial archives to find the act of sale for next door.
Second Step
Vet the plans drawn up and file amendments to the land registry, the process here is called a DOCFA. This process was completed by our Geometra.
The first step was carried out before we’d even made a formal offer on the house. The second one (we paid for the plans to be drawn up) after we had made a formal offer and made a deposit with the previous owners, all part of buying our home
Once we had the land registry correctly amended and registered at the Agenzia delle Entrate (tax office) we were able to go ahead and book an appointment with a notaio (Notary) who then drew up the atto di vendita (bill of sale). This process took approximately a year, so have patience!
Finally in 2022 we closed the purchase of our house so, finally we purchased our home!
What came next? Renovation. We did most of this ourselves, we spent a year removing plaster, ripping out the plumbing and electrics, and then replacing the whole lot. Obviously this isn’t a recommendation to do all this yourself, it just happens we have some of the skills ourselves and unusual mentality of wanting to get hands on!
Plumbing and electrics need to be certified as does the heating system so unless you have Italian qualifications for this you can’t do it yourself. We also employed a builder to help during the summer of 2023 for the finishing of plaster and rendering and some other repairs we made. By the way one of the checks you should make sure of is that the house is already connected to utilities (including sewers) as getting a property connected can be a lengthy process. We have friends (Italian) who waited over a year to get a connection to the sewer and water mains that are 50m away from their house.
One year after purchasing our property we moved into our dream home here in Tuscany. The works we carried out were extensive and being around every day to chase tradesmen, chase up on the delivery of things like our fireplace, bathroom fittings and even making sure the electrician wasn’t asking for assistance from the builder who was employed to carry out other work certainly saved us time and money.
This is where we can help and make your journey a lot smoother, we’ve been there seen it, done it and got the t-shirt!
Why not contact us for assistance? We’re here to help info@expatsos.it or contact us via our facebook page for a free consultation with no obligations.
