The
house we bought in Abruzzo sits among olive and oak trees at the foot of
the Maiella Mountains, snow covered in winter cool and breezy in summer.
Across the valley roofs of antique ‘coppi’ form a sea of warm terracotta.
In the cool of the morning Golden Oriels call to each other across the
valley and tiny jewel-like blue butterflies travel between clumps of clover
and wild yellow vetch. By afternoon with the temperature climbing towards
30 degs all forms of animal life and most humans take a ‘pausa’ until the
suns begins to descend towards the mountains.
Here in our
cherished part of rural Italy we can buy the sort of hand-made, artisan
food that would sell for a small fortune in London: pecorino cheese made
from local sheep’s milk, honey, biscotti, sour dough bread that takes 3
days to prove and the sweetest juiciest cherries anywhere!
The Local restaurant,
‘Lu
Gattone’ bears no resemblance to any English or American ‘Italian’.
The big TV set is constantly turned on and the walls are adorned with a
variety of strange religious artefacts. Its clientele ranges from the traditional
Italian extended family to groups of rowdy teenagers tucking into beers
and Pizza! Portions are generous if not to say huge.
If
you make it past the huge antipasti platter of pecorino, parmesan, olives,
artichokes and sweet pickled onions to the pasta course you may consider
yourself a true Italian!
As well as
‘Lu Gattone’ we have ‘La Cascina’ and a superb pizzeria. We can eat out
every night for less than £20 something we certainly can’t do in
the UK!
All in all
things in our corner of Italy couldn’t have been better and we congratulated
ourselves on our good luck in picking up a gem of a property for the price
of beach hut in England. Yes we still had an awful lot of work to do on
the house but at least we’d got the major project of the roof repair out
of the way without too many nasty shocks. We’d even been able to persuade
our local builders, more used to working with cement and steel, to clean
and re-use the beautiful old clay ‘Piannelli’ roof tiles.
Then in June
last year we arrived at the house to find an enormous hole in the roof
of the adjoining house, leaving our internal kitchen wall exposed to the
elements. Apparently heavy snow in April had finally done for the century’s
old ‘abite’ beams, riddled with wood worm and water.
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| It’s wise
for any potential buyer to check out a property using a surveyor and builder
not connected to the agency. The estimated costs of buildingwork
provided by the agency can be hopelessly inaccurate; at least 50% less
than the actual costs and not including IVA (VAT) geometra’s fees
and costs for planning permissions.Another consideration for all buyers
is the building regulations governing construction in earthquake zones.
In Italy if
you want to carry out any sort of work on your house you generally have
to engage a geometra who will draw up the plans and submit them to the
local Comune for approval charching you 12% of the project’s cost. It’s
a closed shop system, good for geometras not so good for the rest of us!
This is why it’s very difficult if not impossible for DIYers to go it
alone in Italy.
Your geometra
should also be able to help you with other issues relating to your property
including rights of way and connection of services. Like most Italians
they prefer to deal with clients face to face and seldom if ever reply
to emails! To Northern Europeans and Americans this can be
extraordinarily frustrating. To be honest I have no solution to offer on
this one. It’s part of the Italian ‘relaxed’ way of doing business.
Our geometra
contacted the owner of the house but the situation soon got a lot more
complicated. It turned out that the house, consisting of 4 rooms and various
ramshackle ruins, was owned jointly by 8 members of one local family
none of whom communicated! A series of meetings followed involving
lots of travel for our geometra whohad to see every brother separately.
We still haven’t resolved the situation and my last resort could be to
go for a denouncia which would then mean getting the town comune involved.
We would probably
also be stopped from working on our house for 2 years so this is not a
decision to be taken lightly.
Like most English
people we fear getting entangled in the Italian Legal System even though
our neighbours are urging us to go to the Carabinieri. We now have decided
to stop working on the side of our house that’s worse affected by damp
until the roof on that side finally gets fixed. We’ve already told our
carpenter not to made the windows for that side of the house as they would
probably only get damaged.
This situation,
where a single house is owned by several different members of one family,
is very common in Italy due to a law that makes it impossible to disinherit
one’s children.It’s the biggest headache faced by potential buyers looking
in rural areas and many sales fall through because of it. When potential
buyers are shown any property in Italy they should always satisfy themselves
that the agent is fully aware of the number of owners. |
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