There are the following cadastral categories to identify luxury properties: A1, A8 and A9 (elite houses, villas and castles). However, if you buy a house through an agency and not directly from the seller, you need to know the following criteria of luxury properties: anything located on a park territory or a villa (defined by the government), the size of the land is no less than 3000 square meters, a property with a private pool (at least 80 square meters) and a tennis court (no less than 650 square meters), a building of more than 200 square meters with a piece of land six times greater than the square footage of the house, any property with a land with a value 1.5 times greater than the house value, and a few other properties with very specific characteristics. Contact us directly to find out more. 

When buying an Italian property, it is a must to acquire an energy certificate too.

There are different categories, and they are based on the amount of energy needed per year to get one cubic meter of a property heated. The total of eight categories vary from A+ which is the most effective to G which is least effective energy-wise. Besides the amount of energy needed to heat up one cubic meter of a house, geographical location, summer air conditioning, producing hot water and ventilation are taken into consideration to issue an official energy certificate.

It is a must to have an energy certificate when selling and purchasing a house. It is issued by a licensed specialist and is valid for ten years. The cost to get one varies from 250 to 500 euros and depends on whether it is for an apartment or a house. The seller can get a substantial fine if trying to sell a property without a certificate. 

It is an abstract value of a house which differs from the selling price and is normally much lower than that. It is used to calculate several taxes and fees: mortgage and cadastral taxes as well as taxes on heritage and gifting.

Cadastral value depends on a cadastral category a house belongs to as well as on a cadastral income. Cadastral income is actually used to calculate municipal fees. There are the following cadastral categories to be aware of: category A belongs to private properties (which then has eleven subcategories), category B describes public buildings, category C is for factories, labs and such, additionally there are categories D, E and F.

Catasto.it website has a great description of each category with specific examples. 

Prima casa is used for your residency; it is a place where you and your family are officially located. You can have one prima casa per family with underage children. Interesting fact: besides a private property, other cadastral categories belonging to it are also under prima casa definition and, therefore, have advantages in taxation. You can have one object of each other category to be under your prima casa category A property. 

There are three major steps to go through in order to build your own house in Italy: finding and buying a piece of land, having an architectural project and actually building a house. The price of a piece of land depends on a geographical location. It could equal half of your total expenses if you choose an elite area close to a lake or a seashore, for example. Opting out for a quieter countryside could be much more economical.

You will then need to hire a reliable and knowledgeable architect who will create a plan from your property. This could cost around 2% from your total price.

Second step is to get permission to build from a local comune office. The office will define the square footage of your future house, and it will be based on the project created by the architect.

After the project is submitted and approved, you will have to pay two fees to proceed with the construction. For your reference: 150 square meters of your future property will require around 1500 euros for urbanisation and 5000-6000 euros for construction.

Finally comes the building stage. You must have a licensed specialist to monitor the construction. You can simply keep that same architect, and this service costs around 4% of the total price. You can either hire a construction company to do everything for you or do it yourself and hire several different specialists based on work to be done.

There are very strict laws and regulations when it comes to building your own house. On average 150 square meters could cost you around 250,000 euros.

Contact us directly to learn about additional steps of this process. 

Buying a property in Italy does not mean becoming a resident of this country.

If you are eager to move to Italy permanently, you need to apply for permesso di soggiorno which gives you a right to be a resident. There are several valid reasons to do so including having a substantial amount of money for your retirement in Italy or by opening your own company in Italy or getting a job for an Italian company. It is quite a process to first get a visa to enter the country and then submit all the required documents to the local police entity.

If you do not speak Italian and are not familiar with local laws, it is advisable to hire a legal representative to do all the paperwork on your behalf.

In order to rent an apartment in Italy, you must sign a lease agreement between the landlord and the tenant. In this case, the tenant makes an appointment with the owner of the house in order to inspect the potential flat, and the landlord checks the payment capacity of the future tenant (the tenant must indicate his/her job title and Italian tax number). Once the contract is signed by both parties, the landlord or tenant must register this contract with the tax office within 30 days of signing. Within 60 days, you must receive a notification of successful registration. Usually, the payment for this service is split between both parties.

In Italy, there are three types of lease agreements: temporary, from 1 to 18 months, standard, for 4 years, which can be extended for the next 4 years, and also mutual agreement, for 3 years with the possibility of renewal for 2 years.

What must be included in the contract? Please note that any lease agreement must display the full contact information of both parties, information about the apartment, data on the energy efficiency of the premises, the rental amount for the year, utility costs, the amount of the deposit, the duration of the contract, the terms of termination of the contract, as well as information about the remodeling possibilities.

If you were born later than 1955, you can easily apply for the Mountain Bonus to move to Piedmont and receive up to € 40,000 for doing so.

More recently, this benefit has been extended not only to the citizens of Italy, but also to the immigrants in this country. You simply need to submit an application by the end of 2021, choosing one of the small towns in Piedmont, with a population of up to 5,000 people. Next, you will receive a bonus of € 10,000 to € 40,000, which you must spend on the purchase and / or renovation of your new home. This way Piedmont government wants to support small villages and towns where young people would settle in and create new families.

The size of the bonus depends on the age of the applicant (the younger he or she is, the higher the score is that determines the amount of the bonus), the population of the selected city (the lower the number, the better it is for the overall score), the presence of children under 10 years old, a job with earnings less than 20,000 euros in year.