Just recently my family discovered that my great great great grandfather's house in Sicily is abandoned and as such, possibly up for grabs. Even my family in Sicily didn't really know about this house, and my cousin owns a lot of houses anyway so he doesn't want it.

If the house is abandoned, does anyone know if it's possible to pay the town to buy the house off of them? Would we have to pay back taxes and such? Has anyone done this before?

Basically, my father wants to buy the house to keep it in the family, and so that I can have somewhere to live in the future besides my cousin's houses in Sicily. If my great great great grandfather's house still has back taxes, I'm pretty sure as the buyer, we'd be responsible for that, but I wonder how much money can really be owed?

How does the process of buying a house in Italy from abroad go?

I would ask my cousin but you know how things are in August.... lol

OK UPDATE: the original owner is my great great great grandfather. The house passed down to my great aunt, who then (I assume) gave it to her son, my second cousin. He died in '96 and the house hasn't been lived in since 1975 when my great uncle died. Hope that helps.

If it belongs to the comune now, can we still buy it?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ricciolina,

... just a friendly bump

I would try emailing Charlotte Oliver, an english-speaking Italian lawyer. She seems to know much about this sort of thing, judging by her postings at www.italymag.co.uk/forums as CMJ Oliver, Solicitor .

www.studiopaoletti.com click on People, then click on Charlotte Oliver.

Ok! Mi informero'...


grazie!!!!

Hello,

I hope that there is someone who could advise me please what can I expect next!

Almost 3 years ago my sister and I inherited a small apartment in Le Marche. (We live in Australia).

Our first step was to go through the process of successione dei beni. Which was done. (a paper war back and forth between consulates, notararies etc).

The apartment had been rented out for 15 years at a very cheap rental,
There was never a rental increase and the tenants were paying only 250 euro per month).


A (dubious) distant cousin of mine was handling this rental for my father.

However, In the meantime the tenants left the apartment after not paying rent for over one year. First I received a multa because of some rental contract which was never registered. (I paid this approx 3,000euro).

Then even though the tenants paid minimal rent, then no rent at all for the last year, they left the apartment and did not sign off the lease or hand back the keys. This process took me another year (with an Italian lawyer) to finally get a court order for myself to regain possession of this apartment.(3,700 euros later).

I don’t understand how an apartment can sit abandoned all this time and the owner not allowed to take possession when the tenants, are 1. clearly Did not pay rent and, 2. very obviously long gone + taken all the furniture including the kitchen which belonged to my father.

Now I find out that all the utility bills (bollette di gas, metano, water, condominium etc) were all in my fathers name all these years and that these tenants only paid the minimo on them. Now I find I have another 4,000 euro to pay up.

Can anyone give me some idea how this works in Italy ? Doesn’t the electricity or gas or water companies just cut off these utilities when they are not paid ?

I would really appreciate any input, thankyou.