Buying a property in Italy

Is your lifelong dream to own a house in Tuscany? Are you thinking of making the dream come true?

1) Purchase Offer

Usually the first step when buying a property in Italy is to make a formal offer of purchase, which is a written or oral declaration of interest in the property. This offer starts off the transaction. The offer should be drafted for that specific purpose. In fact, if this document is not drafted correctly, it could act as a preliminary contract of sale.

At this stage we recommend that you hire a surveyor or an architect who, together with the lawyer representing you, inspect the property for latent defects, make sure that the house has been built following regulations, etc.

2) Preliminary contract

When a transaction is successful and a sale is agreed, a preliminary contract is drafted, specifying price, payment method and date of delivery. Make sure you understand every part of the contract, because once you sign it you will have to proceed to the deed on the terms and conditions of the contract.

Normally, when a preliminary contract is drawn up, the buyer pays a deposit equal to 10 to 15% of the agreed price. If the sale is not completed, the parties involved will be refunded differently depending on where the responsibility lies. If the buyer pulls out, the seller will be entitled to keep the deposit, if the seller pulls out, s/he will have to reimburse double the amount of the deposit to the buyer. As many weeks or even months can pass between the preliminary contract and the deed, we recommend to submit a registration of the preliminary contract in accordance with article 2645 Italian civil code.

3) The Deed

The final stage of the sale process is drafting the deed. In Italy, the transfer of ownership occurs when signing the deed.

We are happy to help you at any stage, from the purchase offer to the deed.

Disclaimer: The purpose of this website is to provide general information only. The lawyer Franziska Goller oversees its content to make sure that the given information is correct and updated as much and often as possible. However errors and omissions, deriving for example from possible changes in the law, cannot be completely ruled out.