Someone in Italy who deals with the agents in Italian, checks what you are told, and works only for you.
Finding the property is the part of the process that looks easiest from abroad and turns out to be the most frustrating. Listings are scattered across portals and agency windows, descriptions are optimistic, the same property appears at different prices through different agents, and the whole conversation happens in Italian at a speed that assumes you are already in the country.
We are not estate agents and we do not sell property. What we do is act for you in a market where nobody else does.
We deal with agents on your behalf and in Italian: requesting the documents that should come with a listing, testing what is claimed about a property, checking whether the asking price bears any relation to comparable sales in the area, and negotiating as your representative rather than as an interested intermediary.
We coordinate viewings around the time you actually have in Italy, and where you cannot travel we can attend and report. When a property becomes serious, the move into due diligence and contract review is not a handover to another firm: it is the same file continuing.
The agent's commission is still payable to the agent, by the buyer as well as the seller, on the usual terms. Our fee is separate and is not commission-based, so we have no interest in the purchase completing at any particular price, or at all. Where the right answer is that a property is not worth buying, we are free to say so.
Two things are worth settling before the search begins rather than during it.
The first is whether you can buy at all. Non-EU buyers are subject to the reciprocity condition, and for some nationalities the position is currently uncertain. It is a poor moment to discover that after finding the house.
The second is the tax side of how you buy, and in particular whether you will claim the reduced acquisition rate: depending on the route, that relief can oblige you to register your residence, with consequences well beyond the purchase.
And if you are not yet sure about the area, the most prudent thing you can do is still to rent in it first.
No. We are a law firm. We deal with agents on your behalf, but we do not sell property and we do not take commission.
Yes. In Italy the agent's commission is usually payable by the buyer as well as the seller. Our fee is separate and does not depend on the price or on the purchase completing.
Yes. We can attend viewings on your behalf and report back, and coordinate the ones you attend around your time in Italy.
Avv. Marco Mesina
Founder, Move to Dolce Vita · Avvocato, Milan Bar (Ordine degli Avvocati di Milano)
Marco is an Italian tax lawyer who advises individuals and families relocating to Italy on tax regimes, residency, citizenship, real estate and succession planning. Before founding Move to Dolce Vita he worked at Watson Farley & Williams, Withers and Deloitte in Milan.