Gtres
Gtres

The pitfalls of buying real estate in Italy are many, but buying a house safely is possible. Claudia Petraglia, national adviser of the Italian Notariat explains to idealista/news how to avoid unpleasant surprises when purchasing property.

When you decide to buy a house, what should you be careful of?

"The problems that arise when you decide to buy a house are many and the pitfalls are always lurking. These are dangers that we find from the beginning of the process right up to when we proceed to sign the purchase proposal, which shows different elements: the property, the price offered, the payment terms, the time at which the final contract will be reached, the terms for the handover of the property.

“Not everyone knows that when the purchase proposal is accepted by the seller, a real contractual relationship is established between the two parties. At this point you may have committed yourself but overlooked a series of conditions that at first seem insignificant, but that can actually become important later. It is therefore essential to be very careful about what you sign in this first phase and to demand immediate delivery of certain documents to be check them carefully. It is also desirable to contact a notary from the very beginning."

What documents should you check?

"The first important document that the notary requires is the title deed of the seller's property because by examining it, a series of elements begin to emerge. In particular, you can verify who the real owner is, if there are more owners, if the property belongs to a married person or not, if the owner has died and therefore the property has arrived by inheritance to the current sellers, in which case it will be necessary to verify who the rightful owners are and that everyone has accepted the inheritance; you can verify that there are no minors or persons with limited capacity (being interdicted or beneficiaries of administrative support, etc.), who need to obtain judicial authorisation in order to sell; you can check if the building was built by a building cooperative and therefore there are agreements with the local municipality that may limit the free sale of the building. Examining the title deed to confirm the ownership is therefore fundamental.

“This is obviously accompanied by the verification in the property registers of the actual situation. It starts with the title deed of the property, but then it is necessary to verify if the person who appears to be the owner is still effectively the owner. Just as it is important to check in the property registers whether the property has a mortgage on it or not. Clearly, the mortgage must not scare you, because it often happens that you buy a home by making a mortgage. The important thing is to clarify in the course of the preliminary contract is that the seller will have to take care of paying that loan, perhaps even with the proceeds of the sale, which equals the cancellation of the mortgage. It is essential that you bring out onto the table all the things that allow a correct and conscious evaluation of the purchase.

“For example, if it turns out there’s a mortgage on the property, you need to ask the bank or lender for a settlement statement. Another thing that must be verified is that the property is properly registered, so that it is represented exactly as it is on a cadastral plan. It is also necessary to check the building regulations. Another check regards the conditions of the condominium: in this case it is advisable to request a certificate from the condominium administrator showing that the payments have been made regularly, that there are no outstanding disputes in the apartment block, that no building works have been approved, or if they have, what they are, how much the expenses amount to and so on. Checks are needed all-round to make assessments without facing any nasty surprises.”

What happens once the appropriate checks have been made?

"Once all the checks have been made, you have to make the preliminary contract. Most of the time, real estate bargaining consists of two parts: the preliminary contract and the final contract. In theory, the final contract is the most important because it is signed by a notary, but the private purchase agreement is also a very important phase. The services of the notary are also fundamental in this phase too, then, because all those little steps that don’t seem to be very important become decisive for the success of the operation.

“The notary also can assist the parties in drafting the preliminary purchase contract, even if it remains a private agreement. But it is equally true that, in order to guarantee it 100%, a preliminary 'notarisation' should be done because that allows the transcription of the contract in the property registers. In fact, it may happen that between the preliminary contract and the definitive one you spend a good deal of time, or that you are buying from a development or sales company who is bankrupt. In this case, by transcribing the pre-purchase contract (to transcribe it you need a notarial deed or a private deed authenticated by the notary) the purchase is protected: from that moment on the vendor cannot sell any more to anyone, a seizure of property cannot be enforced against the buyer, and any subsequent mortgage is not opposable. By transcribing the preliminary contract, in practice, the buyer finally ends up with the property as they have already checked it and everything that happens in the meantime does not concern them anymore.

“In the case of real estate sales in Italy, the notary is really the great expert. And it is our system that has entrusted the notary with the role of guarantor of the security of real estate traffic."