242 Is this the longest completion?

Don't know if you have set a record but I'd be interested to know how much interest has been made on the 1/3 deposit you gave to the agent!!!

Have you been given any reason for the delay? Our completion took a year but only because we weren’t going to be in Italy any earlier and the seller was quite happy to wait.

Susi

Susi,
Did you lay out any terms in your offer .... valid until, completion within etc? Sounds very strange that this is lingering on for more than 3 or 4 months without a good reason from the estate agent. There are probably planning issues lurking in the background.
David

hi We've also been waiting since feb 2004. We are tying to buy in Abbruzzo. There have been many problems with illegal builds and part of the land being owned by the commune.Luckily we had private contract drawn up and only so far paid goodwill payment of 5000 euros, couple of extensions to our original contaract dates, since original offer have managed to secure extra land next to the property,so some bonus. Just returned from holiday today (America) Maybe a glint of hope of final signing from our solicitor who says papers ready for final signing.Need to confirm as we have been to this point several times since July 2004 when our architect highlighted the problems with land and illegal builds. Ever hopeful we will achieve our dream soon!!!

Your preliminary contract should spell out when the completion date was due, assuming that it was put in of course.

The words in Italian would look something like this...

L’atto definitivo andrà effettuato entro e non oltre il XX () XXXX 200X

What has vendor to say about this?

The original date for completion was July 2004. This was then extended due to problems with complications of ownership of different parts of the building. The next completion date was September 2004. This came and went. Again our Geometra extended it because of his lack of getting on with the paper work.
The next completion date was December 2004. Agin this has now passed by.
The agent keeps saying that all the paperwork is now complete and the complications on the vendor's side are all in order, but still we are waiting for the final day.

[QUOTE=yorkshirelass]The original date for completion was July 2004. This was then extended due to problems with complications of ownership of different parts of the building. The next completion date was September 2004. This came and went. Again our Geometra extended it because of his lack of getting on with the paper work.
The next completion date was December 2004. Agin this has now passed by.
The agent keeps saying that all the paperwork is now complete and the complications on the vendor's side are all in order, but still we are waiting for the final day.[/QUOTE]

You're not alone, we bought our home from a friend of a friend and the deal was extremely protracted. Several family members had an interest in the property and we bought a working farm so we first had to prove that none of the neighbours wanted to buy the property. From start to finish took well over a year and we paid a 30% deposit direct to the seller. Fortunately no agents involved which shortened the time a little, but it was still about 18months start to finish.

Just a quick update.
I have been given a date for next week for completion so am keeping fingers crossed.

[QUOTE=yorkshirelass]We are in the process of buying a property in Tuscany. The agent operates in the Bagni di Lucca area selling fine Italian homes. We made our offer last February - that's February 2004! - have paid our 1/3 deposit but we still await final completion.
Has anyone else had similar protracted dealings?[/QUOTE]

Just to let you al know that we finally completed the purhase on Monday night. We couldn't actually be out in Italy to celebrate this mighty occasion but are now actually believing that we have finally succeeded.
So, for anyone else out there going through a longer complex transaction, don' give up.
Some of the reason for the protracted purchase was the inefficiency of the agents - an Italian and English partnership, based nears Bagni di Lucca,who didn't seem to believe in communicating.
Still, we've got our project now and hope to be able to develop it into apartments to sell on.
If anyone's interested in an apartment over looking a river...em.

Well done, you give hope to the rest of us still waiting that it still might happen!! Our agents also don't believe in communicating fully and frequently with us-they said once "we dont like to worry you" !! that makes us worry all the more. Enjoy your project.

just so you dont feel its just foreigners...we have neighbours trying to buy the house next door to theirs...local...italian.... the house next door has not been lived in for several yeras and no one wants to that is one of the 11 owners...its not worth much more than e30,000 and it has all been going on for the last 2 odd years.....every time you can get ten to agree the elleventh changes their mind......

so it happens to all and sundry....