The Big Four
How to buy property in Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom.
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Unfortunately, prices in Tuscany—and parts of neighboring Umbria—have tripled and quadrupled over the past decade, as the region’s signature stone farmhouses, abandoned in the wake of an extraordinary exodus over the past century from Italy’s rural areas, were snapped up by other Europeans and Americans.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
Castello di Casole bathrooms
feature carrara marble from the same quarry that Michelango
obtained marble for
his sculptures. Photograph by Pat Sudmeier. (Click image
to enlarge) Though no other region of Italy quite has Tuscany’s cachet, other areas are now on the radar. Thanks to George Clooney, who plunked down millions for a villa on Lake Como, the favorite weekend getaway of the Milanese is now known to the millions who read People and Us Weekly.
With discount airlines like EasyJet and RyanAir flying into Brindisi, Pescara and Ancona on the Adriatic, investors are also discovering the Abruzzo, Le Marche and Puglia regions on the east coast.
A deposit of 10 to 30 percent of the sale price will secure your Italian dream home upon acceptance of a formal written offer. After your lawyer has verified ownership, past payment of property taxes and the validity of any building permits, both buyer and seller sign a binding preliminary contract, which spells out all the terms of the final sales contract. At this point, the buyer generally puts down another 20 percent. Ownership is transferred upon acceptance of the notarized sales contract; the sale is then registered and the balance is due.
Property taxes in Italy are paid to the local commune and the state; the amount depends on the size of the house and the commune. Capital gains tax decreases the longer you own a property; after five years, CGT is no longer applicable. A fiscal receipt is required for tax purposes on restoration work and will also be helpful should any dispute arise.
Other associated costs include notary fees (2 percent),
registration
fees (4 to 17 percent) and property purchase taxes (3 to 10
percent).
Brokers’ commissions (4 to 5 percent) are paid by
the seller.
FRANCE
If your vacation-home fantasy has been fueled by years of high
school French, Calvin Trillin essays and strolls through St.
Paul de Vence, you
are probably not going to
look further than the hexagon.
Burgundy, with its rolling, vine-covered hills, is less
expensive
than the Riviera or Provence; and Normandy, with its dramatic
coastline, has lots of charm, but spotty weather. The
Dordogne, harder
to get to
than most other areas in France,
was the latest rage among
English and German
buyers, many of
whom nabbed great old stone mill-
and farmhouses and turned them
into bed-and-breakfasts.
Two properties in Paris available through Christie’s
Great Estates. Top: An early-20th-century residence on the Place de l’Étoile,
with views of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, is priced at $6.01
million. Bottom: Located in the Latin Quarter, this 13,000-square-foot mansion
includes a 7,000-square-foot garden. (Click images
to enlarge) ; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
Once you have found a property, be it in St. Remy or St. Malo,
and
agreed on a price with the seller, a notary—a government-appointed
official with the legal monopoly on all French real estate
transfers—will draw
up either a promesse de
vente or
a
compromis de vente
for both parties to sign. The former
gives the buyer
an option of buying the
property within a
period of time for an
agreed-upon price for a forfeitable
deposit of 10 percent. The latter
is a binding sales agreement
that contains the
conditions of the
sale.
