Hi,Buying our house illegally, through no fault of our own. I don’t know if this helps anyone out there who has had similar difficulties but here goes.
Hi,Buying our house illegally, through no fault of our own. I don’t know if this helps anyone out there who has had similar difficulties but here goes.
Hi,My wife Pauline and I moved from England to Abruzzo in 2004, where she worked as a languages teacher and I spent my time restoring our farmhouse and building a new cottage.
Our farmhouse is just outside Bellante, 15 minutes from the beach at Giulianova and 30 kilometres north of Pescara. At times watching paint dry could be described as exiting by comparison to Italian bureaucracy, but then at other times it can be fun. We towed a caravan here to live in whilst I restored the house and I was waiting for my Italian residency to come through. Only about 18 months later I had to go through the last stages of paperwork concerning the residency at the comune. We went there with a good friend of ours who lived in the village and as we went through the forms with the “official” there she asked where we lived, not the address but the type of accommodation, “A caravan” our friend replied. She looked at this demented idiot and then her arms flew up “No that is absolutely not acceptable, a caravan is not a permanent dwelling it is temporary you must have a permanent dwelling, no” was her dismissive reply as she walked away to talk to someone in uniform who was clearly more important. Our friend thought about it for a few minutes and managed to interrupt their conversation about the weather and asked “What about if we took the wheels off the caravan and put in on bricks?”. She gave us a long grim official stair and replied “Va bene” and stamped the form. Next day another friend the local vigili who also kept the bar in the village donned his uniform, strapped on his berretta and came and had a glass of wine with us in our new “permanent dwelling”. Solo in Italia.
I’m sure you are right, it may indeed not be certain the notaio who got it wrong ( and I’ve seen pigs flying that prove this could indeed be the case) but does it excuse him from not replying to any correspondence on the matter, or is he just keeping his head below the parapet? As to varying the comune PRG have you any idea just how long this could take? No and neither does anyone else either, especially the comune. Yes ok notaries and lawyers everywhere can make mistakes as we all do. Yet in England you would probably feel more confident that a straightforward procedure exists to rectify those mistakes and relatively quickly, whilst in Italy not only do things take sooooo much longer, in my experience straightforward doesn’t seem to exist. Who’s a sceptic? Anyway thanks for your good wishes, I’ll even try and stop sticking pins into things.
At the moment I’m not sure, we have a serious problem with something in Abruzzo that needs sorting before my frustration with the place goes away. As ever when you move to a different country and things are not done the way you are used to you have to find your way around, which we did in lots of ways and I have to say we enjoyed most of it. But I suppose one of the worst aspects there for me is the bureaucracy, its bad enough here in England and getting worse all the time, but in Italy? Don’t get me started. If we do get things sorted then I would not rule out returning, amongst lots of other things both Pauline and I enjoyed the people and pace of life there and for us Abruzzo has a lot to offer over living in England, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Comments posted
Hi Angelo,
Almost, our Lawyer is taking the Agent to court and we are hopeful of a good outcome thanks.
Ciao
Our farmhouse is just outside Bellante, 15 minutes from the beach at Giulianova and 30 kilometres north of Pescara. At times watching paint dry could be described as exiting by comparison to Italian bureaucracy, but then at other times it can be fun. We towed a caravan here to live in whilst I restored the house and I was waiting for my Italian residency to come through. Only about 18 months later I had to go through the last stages of paperwork concerning the residency at the comune. We went there with a good friend of ours who lived in the village and as we went through the forms with the “official” there she asked where we lived, not the address but the type of accommodation, “A caravan” our friend replied. She looked at this demented idiot and then her arms flew up “No that is absolutely not acceptable, a caravan is not a permanent dwelling it is temporary you must have a permanent dwelling, no” was her dismissive reply as she walked away to talk to someone in uniform who was clearly more important. Our friend thought about it for a few minutes and managed to interrupt their conversation about the weather and asked “What about if we took the wheels off the caravan and put in on bricks?”. She gave us a long grim official stair and replied “Va bene” and stamped the form. Next day another friend the local vigili who also kept the bar in the village donned his uniform, strapped on his berretta and came and had a glass of wine with us in our new “permanent dwelling”. Solo in Italia.
I’m sure you are right, it may indeed not be certain the notaio who got it wrong ( and I’ve seen pigs flying that prove this could indeed be the case) but does it excuse him from not replying to any correspondence on the matter, or is he just keeping his head below the parapet? As to varying the comune PRG have you any idea just how long this could take? No and neither does anyone else either, especially the comune. Yes ok notaries and lawyers everywhere can make mistakes as we all do. Yet in England you would probably feel more confident that a straightforward procedure exists to rectify those mistakes and relatively quickly, whilst in Italy not only do things take sooooo much longer, in my experience straightforward doesn’t seem to exist. Who’s a sceptic? Anyway thanks for your good wishes, I’ll even try and stop sticking pins into things.
I’m afraid I don’t know if the law applies only to Abruzzo, or the problems only exist in our comune. Best of luck with your notaio.
Thanks a lot, yes we hope so too
At the moment I’m not sure, we have a serious problem with something in Abruzzo that needs sorting before my frustration with the place goes away. As ever when you move to a different country and things are not done the way you are used to you have to find your way around, which we did in lots of ways and I have to say we enjoyed most of it. But I suppose one of the worst aspects there for me is the bureaucracy, its bad enough here in England and getting worse all the time, but in Italy? Don’t get me started. If we do get things sorted then I would not rule out returning, amongst lots of other things both Pauline and I enjoyed the people and pace of life there and for us Abruzzo has a lot to offer over living in England, but we’ll just have to wait and see.