Originally Posted by italy

see there you go.. thats a prime example of wrong and totally illegal process.. when you purchase a property in Italy toady you have to sign within the notary act if you paid for any agency service.. its no an optional thing the declaration if made falsely.. means that should it be found not to be true that you could be fined to the extent that you would loose your house that you had just bought..

it is illegal here for any agent that is registered to accept any payment in cash in regards a house sale and no agent that is working within the law here will accept cash it has to be by an assigned check a copy of which is attached to the final act...

to my mind this lack of knowledge of new laws and acceptable ways of doing things here is the cause of a lot of problems for people buying.. they accept these tales that have no meaning in the real Italy and if practised are significant elements that suggest the people either do not know what they are doing or are criminals that not only risk problems for themselves via the agenzia delle entrata... but also place their clienst at risk..the fines for false declarations reagrding all aspects of property sales here are very high.. and there is no benefit for either the buyer the seller or the agent in declaring false information in a sale unless you are paying with your own money obtained via criminal activity.. it really is very dangerous practice and to my mind stupid...

the most costly part of any property will be the restructure.. a full restructure on a property with no roof works out at for building costs 1500 euro per sq m.. almost doubled for seimic class 1 zones.. plus vat at 20 % and geometra /architect fees of between 13 % and 20 % so say a very small 100 meter square ruin will cost you 150,000 euro to restore plus tax an added 30,000 euro plus fees between 20 and 30,000 euro... so if you add purchase price for a property as suggested above.. 12,000 you are looking at full restructure costs if it around the 100 sq meter mark..about a 2 bedroom size house of close to 200,000 now you tell me if thats a bargain ..its not and even worse at that price or even half that price if your circumstances change you would not even be able to sell it for half that..