Gio

What do you have to pay back if you have bought your house as a Prima Casa and taken advantage of the cheaper tax(?) and are leaving before the 5 years are up?

PAT M

I believe it is now 20% of the increase in value over and above what you paid for the property, "plusvalenza", we are in this position ourselves (if we find a buyer before 2013). We have been told by the estate agents that if we produce invoices/ le fatture for all the home improvements that we have carried out these are deductible and will reduce the tax. hth

modicasa

20% of the profit, minus invoices used for improving the property,notaios fees and estates agents fees involved in the purchase.
However if you bought as prima casa and got your residence within the 18 month limit, the rule is that you must have had residence for more than half the time you have had the house - so if you have had the house for 23 months and residency for 12, no capital gain - if you have had the house for 24 months and residency for just under 12 months, 20% plus valenza.

If you want to keep your prima casa privilege you will have to buy another prima casa in Italy within 12 months of the date of sale, or you lose it forever.

As far as paying back - you would have to pay teh Agenzia dell'Entrate the money you saved on the purchase- ie 4% of the catastal value of the property. The same rule applies if you didnt get your residency within the 18 month limit.

PAT M

Hi Modicasa, I'm a bit confused, regarding this residency rule, we bought the house at the end of January 2008 and moved in on 28/1/2008 as primacasa, we were given our residency certificate by April 2008 so where does that leave us, do we owe the plusvalenza. Could you explain, Italian rules baffle me.Thank you.

bricwood

I have been told value of property has gone down in value by around 20% in the last 2 or 3 years in puglia

Gio

So....what happens if you have to return to the U.K. after becoming ill and not being able to finish the project. Do "they" take this into account?

PAT M

I have been looking into this, my understanding from reading an article by an Italian Notaio, also as Modicasa has explained, is if you have a residency certificate and have lived in the house on which you got the Prima casa benefit for the majority of the time between buying/moving in and selling the law does not consider this speculative and you will not be taxed the plus valenza. In our case we have owned the house for 28 months, lived in it and have had residency for 25 months therefore we are excluded from the plus valenza tax. I have to say that two estate agents did not point this out to us, so thanks Modicasa. If I am wrong please clear up any misunderstandings.

Gio

Thanks for the info & no I didn't realize that either. So, by rights we owe nothing.