First point: buying land and houses in Italy is just as safe as in Britain. The only thing is that the rules and regulations are different. There is little point in using British standards or even British lawyers unless they are thoroughly acquainted with the conditions and customs here.
An Italian ‘notaio’ or notary has a somewhat different and stronger legal position than an English solicitor. His signature on the contract finalises the purchase and makes it legally binding. An Italian notary can draw up certain official documents and is in that sense part of the Italian Civil Service. Registering the change of ownership in the cadastral and land register is a mere formality. It is the notary's signature that defines ownership.
Documents, certificates and cheques or cash can be entrusted to the notary. The notary is personally responsible for the accuracy of the conveyancing documents and therefore checks all documents before approving the sale by signing the conveyancing document ('atto notarile').
The rural properties in which we specialise are sometimes hundreds of years old and are not calculated in square feet, as is the case in the UK. The real value of a house in the country in Italy depends on the fact that it is in a so-called 'zona verde' or protected agricultural area where nothing new can be built. However, the volume in cubic metres of a reconstructed old building or even of a ruin allows one to build or carry out restoration work on the same position to the same height.
The value of a property depends above all on its position, its size in cubic metres, its accessibility, whether it has running water and mains electricity and gas, and whether buying the existing building automatically bestows the right to carry out building work. This explains the enormous sums that are, for example, demanded - and paid - in Tuscany for ruins in beautiful positions.
All dwellings are sold with their plot of ground ('anesso scoperto’). This is normally circumscribed by the so-called 'confine naturale' or 'natural boundary'. A typical plot is normally between 1500 and 3000 square metres. If the plot is any bigger, this is expressly stated. But land is worth less here than in the UK. A hectare of agricultural land (10 000 square metres) in the Marche costs between £3,000 and £10,000 depending on the position and access to roads.
It is often possible to buy additional land, but this requires negotiating skill. It is advisable to buy land immediately and not after the property has already been bought, because it may then be many times dearer. Italian owners of property use this argument: 'if you buy land for your house retrospectively, the house becomes more valuable and so does the land'. This is not very logical but reflects the Italian mentality. It should also be known that the price of land increases disproportionately the less one buys. A hectare may cost 7.500 EUROS but a mere100 square metres of the same land will cost 250 EUROSThis is the equivalent of a price per hectare of 25.000 EUROS.
House and land prices depend on the position and size of the property, comparable prices in the area, the amount of interest shown, and whether the prospective buyer is the farmer next door or an outsider.  Prices are negotiated and agreed in age-old rituals that are often long and noisy. In most cases, the houses have been in the family for a long time and the proprietors are reluctant to relinquish them, even if time has ravaged the roof and walls. The fact that a house is empty and is slowly falling into rack and ruin is no reason to sell. In order to persuade the owners and their families (often several families are involved) to sell at the right price, one of course has to know Italian and preferably the local dialect and local customs.
Great patience, persistence and powers of persuasion are required for these negotiations because many owners have highly exaggerated ideas about the value of their property.
That is why there are specialists, the professional 'mediatori'. A prospective buyer never deals directly with the owner, even when they are friends and neighbours (especially when they are friends and neighbours so that good relations are obtained). Instead, they go through a 'mediatore' or intermediary who negotiates between two parties who are already interested in making a deal. He goes back and forth between the two until the price has been agreed. He is then entrusted by both parties with the final arrangements of the sale. It is the vendor who pays the intermediary's fee, and he of course takes account of this when setting the sale price.
We also make use of these experts, who in turn use our forms to persuade neighbouring farmers to give up their legal or customary rights to first refusal and rights of way. We only come on the scene when the price has already been agreed in order to try to ease it downwards. You can therefore rest assured that our prices are the lowest that can be achieved and any counter offers will fall on deaf ears. There is nothing else to be said. After all, both parties have been using the services of the ‘mediatore’.
People who try to look for a house and negotiate the price directly from Britain have a long, stony and frustrating path before them and will still pay dearly in the end. Tales of people who 'bought directly from the farmer' at a 'marvellous price' are, in fact, just fairy tales, judging from our experience. The 'farmer' is often an unscrupulous intermediary who is certainly not going to be any the poorer at the end of the day. Advertisements in which the advertiser claims to be acting for 'friends in Italy' should be treated with the utmost caution. There is always an 'interpreter', a 'police chief' or a 'mayor' there to advise and help visitors from Britain out of the goodness of his heart. People are very free with their use of qualifications in Italy. They are often invented in order to win confidence. But when the property needs to be conveyanced by the notary, and all the bureaucracy and important matters need to be dealt with, these helpful gentlemen can no longer be found.
Unless you insist on experiencing everything, even unpleasant things, at first hand, you have no choice but to compare properties whose prices have already been definitively negotiated. You already made the first step in this direction when you asked for our catalogue. You can also obtain catalogues and written prospectuses of varying standards of quality from our colleagues and competitors. You can therefore already separate the wheat from the chaff and get an idea about standards and prices before you come over on a viewing trip.
The best thing is not to come to Italy until you have engaged the services of a professional, recognised estate agent who lives in the area, is perfectly bilingual and therefore understands the mentality of both countries, who can offer you a comprehensive service and will deal with everything for you until the contract is signed and perhaps even until you move in, who will spare you as much hassle as possible and who is an expert in this field.