Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

January 2022

On January 15, 2022, Jess, Andrew and I flew to Italy to take possession of the house, visit design studios to select the new kitchen and bathrooms, and buy & build furniture for the bedrooms and living room. This is where the fun really begins!!!

Here we are in the Alaska Airlines lounge in Seattle waiting for our flight.

Did I mention earlier that when you buy a house in Italy, the Italian seller takes the kitchen with them…the entire kitchen, not just the appliances. Cabinets, sink, lights, etc. And beyond that, they take the lights throughout the house, not just the fixtures but the sockets as well, such that when you enter the room there are simply wires hanging down from the ceiling. Oh, don’t forget the thermostat – they take that as well!!!

Back to our January adventure. I rented an apartment in Orvieto (across from the Duomo), for the first part of the trip, thinking we could stay in the house for the last part of the trip, but that turned out to be wishful thinking. Va bene, we are quickly learning to be highly adaptive and flexible.

Visiting design studios proved to be interesting and exhausting. Over the course of three days, we powered through and had some very long days. On the day of the Rogito (the signing of the deed), we visited a design studio then stopped for lunch before heading to the Notaio’s office (Notary) to sign the deed and get the keys to the house. The Rogito was scheduled for June 19th at 3pm CEST.

Just as we were paying the lunch bill, Daniel called to brief me on how the Rogito would go down. He wanted to prepare me, since this was my first Italian home-buying experience. He said that it could take anywhere from 3-6 hours, depending on the age of the Notaio…WHAT?!?!?!?! Why am I just learning this now???? Daniel explained that the Notaio would read the Deed, word for word in Italian, making notes of things that needed adjusting or correction. Then, the translator would read it again in English, making additional notes for corrections or clarifications. Then they would leave the room, make the necessary corrections, and then repeat the process with the seller & their realtor. WHAT??????

When we met up with Federica and Desiree outside of the Notaio’s office, Desiree said that Daniel was wrong and that it would only take about 45 minutes at most. NOTE: we had another design studio to visit after the signing...WHEN are we going to celebrate the closing of the house??????

Here’s how it really went down…

We entered the Notaio’s office and I was directed to the main conference room with Desiree. Jess & Andrew, along with Federica, had to wait in the lobby area. Andrew was allowed to use an office for his interview, so at least he was distracted and productive. There was some commotion and I learned that the seller, Carlo, forgot certain required paperwork and without it, the closing couldn’t happen. He had called his daughter Jessica who would retrieve the documents and bring it to the office, but it would take between 45-60 minutes. Seriously?! Again, we have been planning this day for weeks, how do you not show up with the required paperwork????????

In the main conference room was myself, Desiree (agent), the Notaio, an Interpreter, and an Italian witness. Fortunately the Notaio was ‘young’, in his 40s. He literally read the deed of trust word for word, but in VERY rapid Italian. Seriously…so fast that even the Italians in the room couldn’t understand him, regardless of the fact that they acknowledged their understanding when asked… Thank goodness! But to be honest, we all had the deed to read in advance so hopefully they did that!

He then handed the document to the woman interpreter who again read the deed word for word, but this time in English and much slower. They noted a few adjustments along the way and when finished, left the room to update the document, print it out and return with a clean copy about 30 minutes later. At this point, Jess was allowed to join us, along with the seller and his agent Katia. WAIT FOR IT…

We now repeated the ENTIRE process with the seller in the room. OYE! The Notaio then came over and had me practice signing, as my signature needed to be perfectly legible and consistent, as I would need to sign every page of the deed. While the Notaio didn’t speak English, I totally understood “Meglio!!!” (Better!!) Now I fully understand why Daniel said it could take up to 6 hours.

We finished in about 4 hours…not great but could have been worse. While we were leaving, Jess, Andrew and I were ready to head back to the apartment in Orvieto for dinner and a celebratory drink. However, Desiree and Federica were insistent that we visit the last design studio only a few minutes away. OOF! There was no way of convincing them NO!

The design studio didn’t really have anything we liked but it was strongly suggested that we make some selections. It was clear we were not leaving until we did, so we made some basic decisions about color, texture and the need for things to be ligher in color. With that, we were on our way home … it was now 7:30pm!!!

On our way through Orvieto into centro storico, we were flagged by the Carabiniere to pull over. They do random stops all over. We handed over our passports, vaccination cards, and my International Drivers Permit. After about 10 minutes we were released to head out back on our way. By the time we parked and got back into the apartment it was nearly 9pm. We were STARVING and very tired. We needed food! We headed out to find a nearby place to eat and then head off to bed.

We will celebrate owning a house in Italy tomorrow.

We now own a house in Italy, as witnessed by this enormous amount of keys. Apparantly here in Italy they do not have the ability to sync locks so that you only need 1 or 2 keys. Oof!