Just bought a house in Abruzzo

[Barry]

Hi Paola,
We also ran into a last minute problem in that they had to resurvey the house to the new Urbano rather than the old Rural system.
It seems a lot of the real estate firms take on listings without knowing the legal status of the properties.

[Paola]

Yes, it is true. The first thing that one needs to do is certify that the house has an original deed. This should be done by the real estate agent but many times they just avoid this and when it comes up the estate agent tries to take shortcuts but it never goes the way it should. Have you already signed a purchase proposal and sent a deposit?
Hope all turns out ok.
Paola

[Barry]

We've already purchased. Carrufo, next village up from Ofena. Trying to find out what the taxes are this year right now. There used to be a website listing the rates but it dosen't seem to be working and the Comune hasn't answered my email.

[mountie]

Originally Posted by Paola

Hi Everyone, I am an estate agent in Italy and am pretty familiar with the "right to sell" problem that crosses many people. You see, in Italy to sell a house you need to have the original deed which is the deed that states that you are the owner of the house. Many abandoned homes are taken in possess by one relative and can not be sold unless they go by "usucapione" Ususcapione is a way of having possession of a property and get the original deed. This process takes quite some time. In fact, you have to proove that you have possess of the house and the judge decides wether or not to give you the original deed. It could take more than one year.
What I reccomend to all those purchasing a home in Italy, is to ask to see the original deed before making an offer. I would not purchase a house that is not legally "sellable" by those that say they are the real owners but are not. If I can be of further help for anyone, feel free to ask. Happy house hunting to all!
Paola

hi paola i,ve just been asked to supply a notario with a document of riconoscimenti could tell me what it consists of please

[Stella Artois]

Hi all, looking for buying somewhere in Abruzzo and just wondering if anyone's dealt with Housearounditaly,please?

Any problems with that company?

PS: The staff of Housearounditaly is not welcome to reply to this!!!!

[Barry]

Hi Stella,
We used HouseAroundItaly but our situation was slightly different. We had found the property we wanted and we just used HAI to do the purchasing. The ladies at HAI were all very nice although there offices (at Pescara airport and in an apartment building a couple of blocks away) seemed to be overcrowded and in some confusion. The purchasing went along very slowly but they seemed able to overcome the problems. We became very upset with them after however. The sale was completed in December 2006 and we went to our house in May 2007. We said we would pick up all the paperwork then. When we arrived they hadn't got all the papers and told us to come back a week later. This went on for the 4 weeks we stayed and finally 2 days before we left we literally had to threaten them to get the documents.
I would say the people are pleasant and seem to know there way around but I wouldn't trust them to handle the legal work. ie hire your own notary and geometre if required.

[Stella Artois]

Originally Posted by Barry

Hi Stella,
We used HouseAroundItaly but our situation was slightly different. We had found the property we wanted and we just used HAI to do the purchasing. The ladies at HAI were all very nice although there offices (at Pescara airport and in an apartment building a couple of blocks away) seemed to be overcrowded and in some confusion. The purchasing went along very slowly but they seemed able to overcome the problems. We became very upset with them after however. The sale was completed in December 2006 and we went to our house in May 2007. We said we would pick up all the paperwork then. When we arrived they hadn't got all the papers and told us to come back a week later. This went on for the 4 weeks we stayed and finally 2 days before we left we literally had to threaten them to get the documents.
I would say the people are pleasant and seem to know there way around but I wouldn't trust them to handle the legal work. ie hire your own notary and geometre if required.

Right,thanks for the reply, that sounds very bad to me! But are all the documents on the house in order now? Do you mind if I ask the name of the notary you signed the final contract with??

One more thing, what usually happens after the final contract is signed, I mean does it need to be registered with the local council somehow and what about suppliers ( gaz, electricity, water), was the company of any reasonable assistance with that? How did you know at the end that everything went ok with the sale? And was the house ready to move into on time?

Cheers

[Barry]

We haven't got around to checking if the notary had the title updated yet. I don't have the notaries name handy. We had given power of attorney to HAI as we didn't want to have to fly back and forth from Canada for the signings so never met the notary. HAI seemed to do all the right things up until the end and then they seemed very confused and disorganized.
We dealt with the utilities ourselves as our house is in a very small village and the town office knew us by then, so transferring the water and sewer bill, garbage tax and ICI they did immediately. Power took us a bit (1 year) longer as my requests to ENEL on there website seemed to disappear. We finally had a local help us by phoning ENEL and ranting at them for half an hour which produced a contract for us to sign in about 6 weeks. The former owner paid the bill in the meantime and I reimbursed him. We had arranged with our bank in Pescara to recieve and pay this bill and it seems to be working now. The town won't forward the water, garbage or ICI bills to the bank nor will they send it to us in Calgary so a distant relative in the village recieves and pays them for us. HAI offered to help with the utility transfer but by then I preferred to do it myself so I knew it was done.
Our house was move in ready except for the addition of some furniture. We've had to do some minor repairs (leaky toilet) and some upgrading (change all the mattresses and bedding, pots and pans and most important a barbecue). We do have a bit of an advantage in that the village is so small (27 people) and as we've now found out they are all related to me in some way or another
(3rd, 4th and 5th cousins) that they have looked after us and our lack of Italian hasn't been much of a problem.

[Stella Artois]

Originally Posted by Barry

We haven't got around to checking if the notary had the title updated yet. I don't have the notaries name handy. We had given power of attorney to HAI as we didn't want to have to fly back and forth from Canada for the signings so never met the notary. HAI seemed to do all the right things up until the end and then they seemed very confused and disorganized.
We dealt with the utilities ourselves as our house is in a very small village and the town office knew us by then, so transferring the water and sewer bill, garbage tax and ICI they did immediately. Power took us a bit (1 year) longer as my requests to ENEL on there website seemed to disappear. We finally had a local help us by phoning ENEL and ranting at them for half an hour which produced a contract for us to sign in about 6 weeks. The former owner paid the bill in the meantime and I reimbursed him. We had arranged with our bank in Pescara to recieve and pay this bill and it seems to be working now. The town won't forward the water, garbage or ICI bills to the bank nor will they send it to us in Calgary so a distant relative in the village recieves and pays them for us. HAI offered to help with the utility transfer but by then I preferred to do it myself so I knew it was done.
Our house was move in ready except for the addition of some furniture. We've had to do some minor repairs (leaky toilet) and some upgrading (change all the mattresses and bedding, pots and pans and most important a barbecue). We do have a bit of an advantage in that the village is so small (27 people) and as we've now found out they are all related to me in some way or another
(3rd, 4th and 5th cousins) that they have looked after us and our lack of Italian hasn't been much of a problem.

Barry thank you very much for the answers to my questions, can't think about any other right at the moment ( hope you don't mind very much me asking you so many question, but HAI seems to be very reluctant on giving us any sufficient info on the procedure ).

Would it be ok if I contacted you again if i've got more questions on the matter, unfortunately couldn't find anybody else who could help me with that

I'm glad that you've got things sorted out now, Italy is a gorgeous country!

[Barry]

No problem.

If we had to do it again knowing what we do now I would spend a little more time and look on our own, find a notary and a geomtre and skip the real estate firms entirely. It would take longer but I think it would be more enjoyable.