Noddy's activity

Thanks.  Thats a relief.  No kids or family to challenge it so no action needed.  You're a superstar.  I've never managed to get a definate state of play ANYWHERE.  Cheers.

My partner is a British citizen, but an Italian resident, domiciled in Italy, with an Italian home and a written will leaving everything to me - as instructed by an expensive lawyer.  We are not married. I am a British citizen, living the majority of time in the UK, domiciled in the UK, with my home in the UK. The Italian lawyer said that if we specified in a will that everything was to go to me that it would.  I've never been convinced, as the Italian succession law is quite clear.  Is that correct? So, if the will is amended to say that British law is chosen, I will then inherit fully?  And as the deceased was an Italian domiciled resident, I would get taxed by Italian law and not British?  Did I get that right? I've been trying to make sense of this for years and hoped that the solicitor would help but I fear we got duff advice.

Thanks Ram.  That's a great idea.  We'll track it down and do that, and report back.

I like your way of thinking Ram. Thanks Penny.  Had residency long before the house build.  Its the only home we have.  We were paying ICI happily through our accountant prior to the withdrawal of ICI. Personally, I think its simply a good old fashioned scam.  The Geometra has done his thing and logged it with the comune.  We know that.  We have the paperwork. If the information isn't then diseminated to all the different departments what is the alternative?  That the planning department say 'by the way, you need to tell rubbish and ICI and all their friends?  That sounds perfect.  Or do you go to every desk in their buildings, of which we have three comune buildings in our tiny village all staffed by part timers, and with half the desks and rooms empty (austerity!), with hundreds of photocopies and ask each individual to date stamp that they have received the information? Then, of course, you are bound to miss the half of them who are on sick leave and their work isn't covered by anyone in their absence (because that's how it goes here).  Its wrong.  Its a big fat scam.  Yes, we can take it to the tribunale.  We did this when the local constabulary decided to send us a load of parking tickets for a period we weren't even in the country.  We won.  But the cost of fighting the case was more than just paying the fines.  We've been warned against taking it to the papers because one way or the other they get their own back  you become a target for the next scam. We love this country, but sometimes .....

We're just considering buying a piece of land too, so this thread will be very interesting to us. Does anybody know the ongoing costs too, of owning a piece of agro land? 

As the board's a bit quiet and I'm interested in the outcome of this, I'm just bouncing it back up to the top

We brought our cats over on the plane.  They are really old and it was a bit traumatic.  More for us than them.  I liked the idea of hiring a van and driving them down but, like you, found the one way van hire really expensive.  Mind you, so was the plane. Its just my opinion, but I wouldn't trust my animals to a company to bring over.  I'm sure they are all very nice, but I once put my cats in charge of a professional and when I got one of them back she hadn't got out of her cage for 3 weeks.  She was knee high in her own poo and pee and the guy who handed her back hit her really hard because she spat at him.  It was heart breaking.  She was so thin and shaky. Good luck.

From bitter experience, it's a good idea to get the pool specialist to quote for, arrange and oversee the whole job. We had a pool ordered from the pool company.  They gave the specification for the hole to be dug, which we gave to the builders landscaping the garden.  The builders say the spec was not right and had to charge loads more for a bigger hole and to take the dirt away (its a freeform pool).  Then charge again to bring some of it back again.  The builders also chaged extra because the pool company only sent a man with a van and to do the installation and I don't think he'd ever seen a pool in his life, so the builders had to do it, despite paying the pool company. We took it up with the pool company but they just called the builders liers.  I was hear and witnessed the whole event, so it was true but what can you do. The bottom of the pool delaminated because the pool company decided they couldn't fibre glass for months after the shell was put in.  The builders had delayed the digging job, then the pool company delayed the pool delivery date, and then installed just before winter and then declared they couldn't fibre fill until Spring.  The contractors said this wasn't their problem and we had to get somebody else in to do it (who, incidently, declared that the original builder had used the wrong stuff).  Meanwhile, when the pool was relaminated (2 more times because the 2nd job also delaminated), and the fibre glassing finally done, the electrician came to install the pump box and we found it to be faulty.  The pool company said they'd inspected it on deliverly and felt it was fine then and declared that it had been sabotaged.  Which is rubbish.  The box with all the equipment looked second hand, with threads worn and not put in entirely straight and with a load of screws missing that you could see had never been there.  That aside, we live in a gated property and nobody is about to break over the gate, and stand outside the window of our house to steel a few screws, unscrew some hoses and screw them back in wrong. Nobody guarantees anything because they all blame each other.  A common story here. We finally got it finished and its lovely.  But it ended up costing us around twice as much as the original quotation and, like I say, the guarantees aren't worth the paper they are written on. Moral of the story.  Get the pool company to do the whole job.

Thank you all.  I'll just pay the one then.  That's good news.

We had a similar issue putting central heating and double glazing into old social housing stock.  Condensation would run down the walls because suddenly there was no breath. Modern methods of construction are now using materials and systems from hundreds of years back.  They're not only environmentally friendly, but they also have health benefits too. Earth plasters and finishes, made from clay or lime, are non toxic and allow walls to breathe, so that moisture trapped inside the walls can evaporate out.  Don't seal a wall to address condensation.  Clay, colour pigmented paint is also available.  Shove it on the wall and you never have to paint it. Couple this with a wind driven extraction fan with a heat exchanger.  This creates pressure between the inside and outside air.  Air is drawn in to the building from the outside and recovers the heat that would normally be lost to the outside by conduction.  Moisture is also conducted out of the building and in this way both low humidity and temperature regulation is maintained inside the building.  Its free from fossil fuel dependency as it runs on wind, effective and many asthma sufferers are finding this method of circulation actually eliminates their condition.  If you have a chimney, it'd be a very simple solution.  Retro fit isn't too tricky either. I've no idea about availability here in Italy, but its a widely used method in the UK and available.