482 advice on unexpected deposit, please . . .

We have an offer on a property, have signed a "Proposta irrevocabile di Aquisto" and left a deposit of £3000 euros.
As i understand it this document and deposit effectively should take the property off the market although the seller can still sell to a higher bidder if he so desires but the agent would be a little unscrupulous to go along with that and its really just a case of 'putting your money where you mouth is' so that you can be seen to be a serious buyer.
Unfortunately I believe that it only really binds the seller to the agent rather than the seller to the buyer.
The thing to think about is here is how much you trust the agent and seller and do you want to show how serious you are.
There is always the possibility that the price might rise if the other parties want to see just how keen you are.
That hasn't happened to us and we are confident that all will go as planned but the house isn't actually bought until the final transaction is registered from what I understand.
Takes a bit of leap of faith on your part but, if you think about it, the seller will want to know that he is dealing with someone who is ready, willing and able so to speak so, although its not what would happen in the UK, its still understandable from the sellers point of view.
Hope this helps, I have certainly got a few more grey hairs than I had a few weeks ago but am 'going with the flow'.
Regards, Lesley

Dear Leslie,

many thanks for your swift reply. Kinda confirms how we feel. So far the price miraculously hiked 20,000 Euros, non-negotiable, the moment we expressed any interest. The best offer we got was for some free olive-oil and wine! then the agent dropped the bombshell that the seller didn't want to pay his commission, so the price hiked another Eu4000, and now this . . . . i don't like being taken for a ride, but we want the house more . . .

Tigger

Learn to say NO, and walk away.
All of a sudden they will learn, & cal you back.
Rob

We haven't had any price rises or any requests for more money.
The deposit we were asked for was in place of the usual 10% that would normally be asked for at compromesso (or so we understand it).
But we still have a way to go yet, so anything could happen I suppose but we are feeling confident all will be well.
In your case I have to say it looks like a greedy seller - or agent- (who can blame them, I suppose) but do take care.
And maybe find out just what will be happening to your deposit.
Will it be held by the agent or paid to the seller - and what would you have to do to get it back if you need to?
Have you a solicitor to check that there are no unfair terms involved?
Sorry, don't want to put a black cloud on things but its your hard-earned money at stake at the end of the day,
Best of luck, Lesley

I would be very suspicious if the seller is saying they don't want to pay the agent's commission and you have agreed to pay it and they are still asking for more money. They knew the commission was liable when they put the house on with that agent and I am sure they will have negotiated favourable terms for themselves. They sound like they are trying it on.

We encountered many times the age-old sales trick of "we have just had someone round who is very interested in that property and we won't sell to them as you were first - but you've got to give us an answer" whenever we were seriously interested in a property. That's all it is. We used to call it a "qualifying technique" when I worked in sales.

Yes, you may stand the chance of losing the house but quite honestly Rob's advice is sound. Be firm or what will they ask for next?

I can recommend and English speaking lawyer in southern Marche if you want to email/PM me. I won't say but I bet I can guess which agent it is too!

I hate to be the one to drop any pretence of subtlety, but, you are being taken for a ride, even accepting the normal practice of using an "Italian price" and a wealth Brit price, the seller seems intent on forcing as much as possible from you. LOL, think I know the agency too...

I agree with both Rob and Penny. It seems that the vendor is hedging his/her bets and saying that there are “many people” queuing up to buy the property you are interested in is, I’m afraid, a standard trick. BEWARE OF SUCH VACUOUS CLAIMS!!!

The proposta d’acquisto irrevocabile becomes binding on both parties only when the vendor accepts and signs the agreement within the timescale that has been set. Until that happens it is only binding upon the buyer (it is unilateral). One of the major weaknesses of the proposta d’acquisto is that it provides limited guarantees. That is, until the vendor accepts you have no guarantee that he or she will change his or her mind and decide either to withdraw or sell to someone else.

A good way around this problem is to draw up a proposta with conditional clauses. This may put the vendor off but it is a very effective acid test.

If you really want this house (and if the vendor really wants to sell) then I would skip this and go for the jugular…the contratto preliminare. But do make absolutely sure that your legal position is fully protected by having an independent professional draw up the contract for you. Don’t leave it to the vendor, his/her geometra or the estate agent.

If anyone has any specific queries regarding contractual matters but would like to discuss privately…you are more than welcome to send me a PM. I would be more than happy to point anyone in the right direction.

When to pay a deposit, and how much is a difficult question for all concerned. we paid a 25% deposit 24h after shaking hands on the deal and we didn't have a survey.

OTOH we bought the house of around 1/6th of the price paid by the average Brit and we didn't care if the house fell down, all we wanted was the land. By paying a large deposit early we made it difficult for the family we were buyng from to raise the price and near-impossible for them to back out.

We didnt pay any deposit when buying our house.
Vendor made agreement with agent about his commission but we were not asked for any extra.
My daughter tried to buy property and was asked for 3000eu deposit but as a
cheque not to be cashed.Vendor did not meet time limits and sale was called off.
Also be aware most properties are for sale with several agents.

We paid an initial small deposit of 500 euros at the compromesso stage. We then had to transfer 20% within 1 month to secure the sale. This was all explained to us quite clearly and arranged with no hassle at the outset. At no time was there any hint of the price being raised or the seller refusing to pay his fees. It sounds to me that your seller and/or estate agent is just trying it on to get a few more euros from you.......Don't pay any attention to that story about queues of buyers desperate to step in and buy your property if you don't play the sellers game.

Take a step back and call their bluff (ie tell 'em where to put their price hikes) and I'll wager they will back down. In my (albeit limited) experience property just doesn't move that fast in Italy so stay cool and play them at their own game, and if you do lose out on this one........well there are always thousands more to choose from...........

this reminds me of a house we tried to buy here.... i have mentioned it before in another posting.... offered full asking price.... suddenly agent starts phoning regarding other buyers queing for the place..... vendor didnt want to pay the agent so we were supposed to pick up his 3 % bill.... as well .... the trouble they thought we were desperate for this house... the agents that is.... we had even paid them e200 euro to open a bank acount and get me a code fiscale.....becuse we thought it would be easier dealing with them in this way..... i dont know how many emails they sent to us as well about using a certain money exchange bureau to send the money for the house....some quite curt .... because we didnt show any interest in their suggested company..... we were put under a lot of pressure to commit to everything they phoned or emailed us about..... in the end we pulled out...
..... and we went through a very simple process on the house we eventually bought with none of these hassles..... irony is the owner had our phone number in england and phoned us just before we were coming down here to do the final act..... house still for sale he said.... he wanted us to buy the house with no agent involved at e20,000 less than we had offered....if we could have we wouldnt have... why... well because when all this with the agent was going on....we phoned the owner.... he didnt know anything about other buyers or not paying commision .... he said... so we had little or no faith in either the agent or seller.... it seemed strange to us that the agents who knew we could deal direct with the owners in italian and didnt need their english help were trying this on.... but i guess they were confident in their selling ability.... the agents also pulled out local commune officials who accompany you and promise the earth..... and come up with last minute houses if you havent shown interest in some of the most hopeless houses they have shown you first..... at the end of a long day of viewing places of little more than four walls and no roofs you are almost desperate to find a place you could actually live in.... and then they suddenly make a phone call and this place appears ...and because its better than any of the others your almost bound to be hooked....

so it can be all a carefully organised and high powered selling process you find yourself in...without realising.... i am sure some of these people must have been doing time share sales in spain before they moved onto italy....

however.... and its a big however.... they in a sense are the rarity here.... and you will be unlucky if some sixth sense doesnt kick in and tell you to walk away when you meet these atrociouly nice agents....

we know an agent down the road... a small italian agency .... where a house with five hectares and a small pretty well habitable house has been sold for e65,000..... has a hundred olive trees...fruit trees ....vineyard....to an english person.... the whole process not quite finished but will be next week... has taken six weeks from seeing the place to the final act..... i am not saying every property here will be such good value and as easy... but i know they are about... i know things can happen and go through without lots of the hassles... and mention the two cases above as warnings and hopes... when it all gets a bit silly walk away... it isnt worth it and there will be another place down the road....

[QUOTE=adriatica]however.... and its a big however.... they in a sense are the rarity here.... and you will be unlucky if some sixth sense doesnt kick in and tell you to walk away when you meet these atrociouly nice agents[/QUOTE]

If anyone meets an agent calling himself "James" working in the area of Giulianova/Roseto degli Abruzzi, my advice is to run away, run away. You can't miss him, he's only about 5ft high and wear a cashmere overcoat even in summer. I think he's a relative of Arthur Daley. He tried to sell us a house which was in fact a cow shed just 50 metres from the local dump. It was also evident talking to people in the area that he was unlicensed and had inflated the house price by about 100%, presumaby he was hoping to keep the extra money himself somehow because he hadn't told the vendor.

Sadly we know that the property in question has been bought by a British family. So someone fell for his patter.

Wow!

So many replies! So much invaluable information! I would love to be able respond to all of you wonderful, generous people. Surfice it to say we have now employed the services of an Italian Lawyer based here in London who was recomended to us by a member of this forum. We will keep you posted as to our progress!

Many heartfelt thanks from both of us to all of you wonderful people!

tigger and Mrs tigger

Tiggers

I agree with what the Preator said! :) (who wouldn't?!). Best thing to do is to hand over the negotiations to an Italian estate agent or solicitor who will negotiate the settlement terms on your behalf. In my case, to avoid any problems of transferring money until documents were drafted, agreed and signed, we proposed to transfer the agent's commission first and the 10% deposit afterwards in our solicitors' bank account in the UK. Our solicitors wrote an official letter to the seller in Italian saying more or less: " we are holding this money on trust, we are professionals, therefore take our word that the money has been set aside to pay you. you will only get it when documents are exchanged" it was so simple. They then faxed a photocopy of the transfer from our bank to the solicitors' bank account and it was the end of the matter. As far as we are concerned we had paid, the seller obviously would never question a letter from an Avoocato and everyone was happy.

Money was only transferred when the compromesso was signed.

[QUOTE=Laura72]Tiggers

I agree with what the Preator said! :) (who wouldn't?!). Best thing to do is to hand over the negotiations to an Italian estate agent or solicitor who will negotiate the settlement terms on your behalf. In my case, to avoid any problems of transferring money until documents were drafted, agreed and signed, we proposed to transfer the agent's commission first and the 10% deposit afterwards in our solicitors' bank account in the UK. Our solicitors wrote an official letter to the seller in Italian saying more or less: " we are holding this money on trust, we are professionals, therefore take our word that the money has been set aside to pay you. you will only get it when documents are exchanged" it was so simple. They then faxed a photocopy of the transfer from our bank to the solicitors' bank account and it was the end of the matter. As far as we are concerned we had paid, the seller obviously would never question a letter from an Avoocato and everyone was happy.

Money was only transferred when the compromesso was signed.[/QUOTE]
How about this one then,everything done by the book,expensive lawyer in London used,comprmesso concluded,10% went accross to the seller,that was great we thought .2 weeks later ,went over to italy to see our house ,we then found out that the seller was trying to sell the house from under our feet.We got a local friend of ours in Italy where we were buying to telephone the seller direct ,and act as if he wanted to buy the house,the seller,to our amazement said ,"for sure you give me 10% tomorow and the house is yours", we could not believe it.We went straight to the carrabinieri ,who were superb, sacked our lawyer in London ,got a local avvocato,anyway we finally completed 6 weeks later.The Seller even try to scam us in the bank when we were to complete ,lucky we had our lawyer there present , also our geometre.We finally got it done ,and we now smile about the whole thing,we own a beautiful house ,in a lovely part of Italy,als well that ends well!

[QUOTE=Boungiorno]How about this one then,everything done by the book,expensive lawyer in London used,comprmesso concluded,10% went accross to the seller,that was great we thought .2 weeks later ,went over to italy to see our house ,we then found out that the seller was trying to sell the house from under our feet.We got a local friend of ours in Italy where we were buying to telephone the seller direct ,and act as if he wanted to buy the house,the seller,to our amazement said ,"for sure you give me 10% tomorow and the house is yours", we could not believe it.We went straight to the carrabinieri ,who were superb, sacked our lawyer in London ,got a local avvocato,anyway we finally completed 6 weeks later.The Seller even try to scam us in the bank when we were to complete ,lucky we had our lawyer there present , also our geometre.We finally got it done ,and we now smile about the whole thing,we own a beautiful house ,in a lovely part of Italy,als well that ends well![/QUOTE]

Well-done Buongiorno! This is excellent news and I am very pleased that it all worked out in the end.

People sometimes tend to forget that the there is nothing stopping a vendor from trying it on. Of course there’s nothing wrong in trusting those who you are dealing with and to assume that they will be fair and honest. But this is about you parting with your hard earned money (and lots of it) and say what you like…buying a house is still a commercial undertaking. It requires due caution, diligence and care.

This why the preliminary contract can be such a powerful tool, providing it is drafted properly. It can be extremely effective and can help turn the situation to your advantage instead of vendor.

The tale of the expensive London Lawyer vs the Avvocato is fascinating. Well at least it dispels the myth that all Italian lawyers are bad and that the Carrabinieri are unresponsive (I had to stop my car on one occasion just outside Florence when two guys were fighting in the middle of the road. The one that was being chased quickly jumped into my car and locked the door behind him begging me to give him sanctuary from the nutter who was screaming “ti uccido” I called the Carrabinieri (twice) from my trusted mobile but it still took them 45 minutes to arrive on the scene).

Thanks Laura 72 for your supportive comments. Most of what I’ve learned (and I’m still learning as I go along) has been gained through working in the tough world of aviation and defence. My previous training and experience has undoubtedly helped. But it didn’t prepare me in my quest to buy a house in Italy. I too look back and smile when I think of all the properties I visited, all the sales banter I had to listen to, and all the assurances I received directly from each vendor. You’ll never know how much I now enjoy pretending not to understand word of Italian!

Hi,

It is normal for seller to ask around 5% to 10% deposit. Did will almost guarantee that the seller won't sell it to anybody else; although should he pull out for whatever reason he HAS TO REFUND your amount plus the same amount, instead if you pull out you just lose the deposit or "compromesso"! When you give the compromesso ususally you have to buy the property within 12 months or otherwise agreed.

Davide