house address?
 

Hello, we are in the process of making an offer on a small house in Puglia, near Francavilla Fontana. The house is in a country road apparently called a Contrada (name follows) but no house number!
I am wondering how mail might arrive, how the actual property can be identified (as opposed to the houses nearby) and how deliveries reach us.
I'm sure there's a simple answer but I can't find it!

Re: house address?
 

The format would normally be "Cda name, n." with the "n" being the number at the end. Depending on the size of the road and number of properties the number may not be needed as th postie will know everyone an if they don't your neighbours will... Saying that, with the likes of Amazon deliveries we often had to go and collect them at the local bar, that is until we insisted they deliver... Even then we still often got a call asking where the house was and directions (in Italain of course) were needed.

Re: house address?
 

Hi Steve,
as Geordiborn points out it is highly likely that the house does not have a number. It may have SNC addded onto the address instead of a number. SNC = Senza Numero Civico or in English - Without House Number. I am an architect and my Clients on Lake Como have had the same problem. They lived without a house number for a long time and had Amazon deliver to the local post office. Luckily for them the Comune eventually sorted out the street numbers and allocated every house in the street with an official number (a project which took the Comune many years to carry out). If you ask your local Comune they may also be in the process of carrying out a similar project and may allocate house numbers to your street, if you are lucky.

Best regards,

Conor

Re: house address?
 

thanks very much for those replies. I'll have to check locally and see what the deal is.

Re: house address?
 

Have a look on google street view in the proximity of the house, quite often if there is a number it will be shown on there like this here top left points to "14" on the contrada near us. The reason Amazon had no excuse with us was the fact I put the GPS coordinates on a line of my address - it worked!

Re: house address?
 

First you need to check if the post deliver. It may be too in the middle of nowhere for the PO to bring your mail, in which case you will need a CP (Casella Postale)at the nearest PO: If they do deliver and you are as Conor O says an SNC - then you will be soon known by the postie as the inglesi and any post will miraculously find you - usually as well as any other post for someone with a foreign name.

Re: house address?
 

A couple of months after buying in Umbria, a letter sent to us was returned undelivered.
When we asked at the local post office, they said they knew the apartment was empty and why didn't we tell them as soon as we bought it.
They were also surprised that none of the neighbours had told them!

Re: house address?
 

Ah, very true and reminds me, we went into the local post office with our new address and name and asked them to take a note for the postie. Also put the name clearly on our post box for her. And yes we got every query going for mail with a English looking name on it!