londonlass's activity

Hi, we have an account with Unicredit with online banking facility, and we are very happy with it. I not only pay bills, but pay things like insurance through a bonifico, and even transfer money from Italy to our UK bank account with Barclays when we are in the UK. They only charge me 1 Euro for this using SEPA! We also have a debit card which is both Bancomat and VPay. This is, in effect, a Visa debit card, and you can use this card to pay for anything in any country. We tried this out when we drove back through Europe, and it worked really well. Barclays have just said that I can transfer money the other way now using SEPA and it will only cost me £10 rather than the £25 they charge if you go into the bank. The charges for our Unicredit account are considerably less than the charges we had to pay on the old Cooperativo bank account. They also tend to have someone in the bank who speaks English who can explain everything to you! Hope this helps!

Thank you Ram! That makes it a lot better now! We are resident for the house, and it is prima casa proper, just not resident for the apartment - and I haven't even started on TARSU this year yet!!!

I agree with Sprostoni that I was amazed when we suddenly did not have to pay ICI any more, and even paid it when I didn't have to for the first year! I was not particularly moaining, just trying to understand what I was due to pay. By the way, we are not well off as we are living on a pension, but I feel sorry for the Italians in our village on very low incomes. The increase from when they last paid ICI is phenomenal.

Thanks to everyone for helping clear up some of that! I will print off F24 and fill in as much as I can and then take it back to my comune to get the magic code for the apartment. Looking at Ram's reply for our house (prima casa) I will try and do the sum using 4% as the final number. I presume you meant 4% Ram, and not .4%? I would love it to be .4% but I can't be that lucky! Where does it say that you pay IMU on prima casa in 3 bites? I have not seen this written down. Is this so they have two chances to put it up rather than one?

I went to my comune and asked them to calculate my IMU on our apartment - A2 - where the previous ICI was 632Euros. They gave me the following calculation : Rendita value + 5% x 160 x 10.6% = 1191,02. As you can see, that is some increase! This is 10.6% because I am not resident here. I have 2 questions for you Fillide. The first is what percentage would I be for an A2 house where I am resident on the anagrafe? I have looked at the list, but I can't see which percentage applies to that house? It says, 4.00% abitazione principale, pertinenze dell'abitazione principale classificate exclusavamente nelle categorie catastali C2, C6 and C7, 2.00% fabbricati rurali, 5.00% abitazioni concesse con contratto di locazione concordato in base all'articolo2 , 5.00% sola abitazione concessa in comodato gratuito a parente in linea primo grado, 7.90% fabbricati locali con contratto regolarmente registrato per almeno 90 giorni durante 2012, 7.90% abitazione residenza anagrafica di cointestario, 10.6% fabbricati di catastale A1 ad A9 per non residenti and 8.50% aliquota base! Second question, it says I have to pay this with Modello F24. Is this the incredibly long form on the Agenzia delle Entrate site? help please Fillide!

I too was a fan of Castorama. I got all sorts of things there which were difficult to find anywhere else, but when I tried to go there the other day, it had gone! Disappeared! There was a Brico in its place but none of the odd things that I could find in Castorama.

Wow! That was SUCH a useful site! thanks for that! I have bookmarked it and it will keep my OH happy for hours looking at all the different permutations of routs and petrol stations! Thank you.

Believe me, the path to this enlightenment has not been an easy one! We moved here 7 years ago and had to buy a robust car that could cope with the rigours of a very steep unreliable white road! Our first car was a Honda 4x4 - old, not new, and we first went to our local insurance offices trying to get a quote. First no-one wanted to try and cope with our infant level of Italian, and then when they did, the quotes were the equivalent of a super mortgage! Eventually, we found Direct Line and they tried hard to help us out. After a lot of fuss, we persuaded them that as we had a letter from Norwich Union Direct saying that my husband had been driving blamelessly for more years than he hoped, we had a full no claims bonus, and that this could be transferred to our new Italian insurance. Well, they did not give us the full no claims, but they did give us 3 years. We then stuck with Direct Line for a few years because although we tried other companies we could not get a better quote. (This was about 900 Euros!)Then we changed the car three years ago and bought an old Nissan X trail in my name. When I tried Direct Line for insurance, it was when they had just brought ou7t this Bersani rule that a wife could use her husband's no claim bonus if she had nebver had insurance in Italy before. So, I got my first insurance at about 820 Euros. Last year it went down to 750 Euros, and although we looked at other companies we could not better that. It was only when my renewal notice from direct line put my insurance up rather than down, that I started looking on this comparison site. ConTe was very simple to complete, and saved me 300 Euros, so I think it was well worth while. However, as I said, the journey to enlightenment was a long, painful and expensive one!

Couldn't agree with you more Sprostoni. We too have a pool, and if we had known then what we know now..... Costs a fortune in electricity to keep the pump going, but without the pump going it goes murky! If I had my time again I would definitely go for one of the smart above ground pools. They can come with a surround that looks really quite smart. When your guests have gone, you can then let the water out and put the pool away for the winter. We saw some brilliant prices this year at our local branch of Self. They have a website where you can look at what they have got. I think an above ground would be better than a jacuzzi because 1) it would use less electricity and 2) kids like to splash about wildly in a pool and that is not possible in a jacuzzi. If you do go down this route I found this year that I saved a fortune in pool chemicals by buying them all in the very early summer from IperSimply! I bought 4 in 1 tablets, 5 in a pot for 5 Euros.

Hi Badger, It is third party as well as damage to windscreen etc and legal cover. Interestingly I think comprehensive was still a lot cheaper than the amount you have paid. When I asked Italsure for a quote they came back with over 900 Euros. Well worth looking at this site before next year! Sorry I could not tell you about it before you paid this year's premium.