The Bumpy Road of Home Buying in Italy

It's been a minute since I've posted about the challenges of home buying in Italy, and there has been a good reason. As a portion of this blog is about my experience with my home buying experience, I can only blog as I learn. And the past three months what I've learned is, my experience must fall on the more challenging side of things. Which I guess is good for you, dear readers (not necessarily for me). But if my experience can help bring awareness to potential issues that could be faced during your own process, then, I will have done something worthwhile.

Road of Process

To recap, we put an offer on a property in Volterra (Tuscany) in September 2023. Throughout September and October I learned some lessons about things I wasn't aware of and/or prepared for (as you can read in my previous blog). And then we hit the "big" issue that stopped everything in its tracks...the Ministero della Cultura.

Turns out the property we put an offer in was considered a historic property and needed the approval of the Ministero della Cultura's Belle Arti department to approve the sale. Problem was...the owners had carried out changes to the property that were not approved by the commune and now they had to jump through whatever hoops needed in order to allow the home to be sold.

Now please remember, I am not an expert in any of this, so if any of my information isn't exactly precise, please feel free to leave a comment so I can learn. But what I am doing is sharing what I've learned in a way that I can make sense of. And in this instance I would call this is the "ask forgiveness, not permission" way of dealing with non-approved renovations.

Really, the owner (who passed away) was kicking the can of responsibility down the road. I am guessing that after they got their renovation plan approved (in 1988!) and were in the thick of it, they decided...you know what, let's move that wall a foot farther in that direction, and pop this wall out six inches, because who will ever know. Or...by the time they know, I'll be dead so not my problem anymore.

In any case, after my geometra noted this finding in his report back to me, the onus then shifted to the sellers to ask for official forgiveness. And my plan to have this whole process wrapped in by February, ground to a halt.

Incidentally, when I say 'forgiveness' the reality is that the authorities have two options. In practice they could force the owners to undo the unauthorized changes. But they can also simply approve what has been done, making the new floorplan the approved version, and fining the sellers. This, of course, would assume nothing constructed had critically impacted the property, livability, or violated building codes.

As so I've sat and waited for, first, the province (in my case Pisa) to first make their ruling. This came the last week of January 2024. And now I (still) sit waiting for the commune to issue the fine so that the sellers can pay for it and my notary can finally draw up the paperwork. And did I mention I am flying out in less than two weeks to sign paperwork that doesn't currently exist?!

In summary, this wasn't supposed to be a difficult purchase. It was a vacant property, with all owners with interest identified and ready to sell, and yet we are now going into the seventh month of the home buying experience. I'm just saying, be prepared for anything to derail a smooth process.

I'm still excited and grateful that the process is moving forward, and I plan to capture the process on my Instagram feed (so be sure to follow if you want updates). I'll also be creating some more blogs on some of the more interesting (and difficult) nuances of the process, so be sure to follow me and join me as I chronicle this adventure.

What about you? Have you experienced something like this during your home purchase process in Italy? Let me know in the comments!