Buying property is always a major undertaking. If you are planning to invest in the Italian property market, we highly recommend that you take expert, independent legal advice.
In reality, however, the vast majority of people who buy a home in Italy do not obtain independent legal advice. Most seek legal advice only after having paid a deposit and signed a contract, or – more commonly – once they have already run into problems.
Consider the following:
- Buying a property burdened with charges, encumbrances and other debts
- Buying a property that has never been registered
- Buying a property with a perfect title deed, legally registered, but this property is not the one that you have viewed - the description and registration deeds at the date of the deed may turn out to belong to a different property altogether
- Handing over a deposit to someone purporting to be the owner, but subsequently this person disappears without trace
- Buying a property with tenants still living in it but, unbeknown to you, these are legally registered tenants who are entitled to stay until the expiration of the term of their rental contract or to demand a sum of money as compensation in order to make them leave.
As a general rule, we advise you not to sign anything or pay any money until you have sought legal advice in a language in which you are fluent from a lawyer who is experienced in Italian real estate law. Trying to save money on legal costs can be very dangerous when a large sum of money is at stake. Property in many parts of Italy is overvalued. Property up for sale may have legal and /or structural problems which are not always visible to the untrained eye. Usually, none of these will be explained to you by the different non-independent parties involved in the transaction, despite the fact that these same people often charge heavily for their involvement. For this reason, throughout this document we strongly urge you not to place confidence in any advice or information given to you by those with a financial interest in the sale of the property in which you are interested. In contrast, your separate independent legal adviser may be the only independent voice you will have during the whole transaction.
It is dangerous to rely on advice given by the seller and/or estate agents, mainly because: (a) they are not lawyers; (b) they both have a financial stake in selling the property to you, which inevitably means that their different interests will not coincide with yours. Some of them may not want you to know the truth. Put another way, they might be telling you what they want you to know, but not necessarily what you need to know. This explains why some estate agents are so often elusive and obstinate in negotiations, and why they are at the best lukewarm, if not outright hostile, at your taking separate independent legal advice.
