NEWCOMO

Hi

I would like to sell property and to sell at a lower rate than most Italian companies.. Is this possible and would I be stopped...

I have been told I need to have some professional qualifications... but in UK estate agents/brokers are not the brightest persons on the planet.. is this the same in Italy...

Can you move against the 3% buying / 3% selling rates ?

modicasa

To be an Italian estate agent you must have a) passed the exams b) be registered as a licenced estate agent at the CCIAA and the REA and have partita IVA. Anything else is illegal, and is shortly to become a criminal crime and not a civil crime. You have legal responsibility for everything you sell, say and do - you are responsible for all the antirecycling legislation. If you are not a legal agent, you cannot appear in the act of sale, which is tax evasion and leads to fines of up to 15000 euros per sale and annulment of the act of sale. Try and operate illegally and you will be denounced as an 'abusivo' by legal agencies - who after all pay tax and all the rest.
Alot of people think being an agent is money for nothing. It isnt. You run an office, pay staff and all the rest. You will pay alot of tax (I pay 71% of everything I earn). I am legally responsible for the properties I sell, if I muck up I have to rebuy the property or sort out the mess. The laws change constantly - you have to be constantly updated on whats going on. The sale is done by the agent and notary, its not just a question of bunging a few photos on the internet and collecting 3% in commission.

Isakat

The 3% commission is negotiable I was told, someone also told me that you can even come to an agreement not to pay the agent anything when you sell, he will take the fees from the buyer. Now, how legal is this I do not know.

Pinco Pallino

NEWCOMO

Hi Modicasa, Excellent Post. I agree with all your points.

I was thinking how do I see a lot of English sites selling Italian properties in England through an agent.

Is this an agreement between a local property agent and an English Agent and how legal is this? How does this work with the sale agreements?

modicasa

Englislh sites are merely listings sites. There must be an Italian agent on the ground who is then the 'agent' in the act of sale. With a UK listing site, you get no legal coverage, no local knowledge, nothing except fees far in excess usually of what you would pay using a local agent. A UK agent cant work in Italy - unless they invoice the Italian agent directly... I tend to avoid the Uk listings sites - they 'grab' the info, alot of it is out of date, they are expensive and they have no legal responsibility for anything they say. They ask you for money in advance for your house visits. As they are not written in the act of sale in Italy though, you are under no legal obligation to give them a penny.

modicasa

The idea of the 3% is that the agent will take it from both buyer and seller - the agent by law must be independent in the sale, though alot are not. Certainly its negotiable - some agents will try and charge 4 to 6% for unwary foreigners. However the rate is set by the Chamber of Commerce.
To negotiate on the commission rate you would have to have a property that the agent really wanted to sell, or had a buyer ready for - which at the moment is unlikely! The more expensive the property the more negotiability there is in the commission. Im not going to give you a reduction on a house of 60.000 as fundamentially its the same amount of work as a sale of 600.000.

NEWCOMO

Hi Modicasa,

"As they are not written in the act of sale in Italy though, you are under no legal obligation to give them a penny."

How does that work.. .

I heard once that a seller paid the agent (a commission) but the buyer was supposed to pay an English agent but I was told as it was not in the sale, there is no legal obligation to pay them... )...

I thought the seller pays 3% and the buyer 3% ... but in this example the buyer did not pay the English Agent.

modicasa

You are buying a property in Italy, and Italian law applies. The law in Italy says that you pay the agent - the agent must be cited in the act of sale with all the monies paid and antirecycling etc. If the agent is not in the act of sale he does not and never did exist. As only a legal agent can be in the act of sale - otherwise there will be a visti from the Finanza and AdE - a non legal agent, in this case a UK one tries to be paid in the UKand avoid all the Itlaian legalities. However, there is no Italian legal necessity to pay any agent who is not in the act of sale. If you decide to pay the English 'agent' its your choice. And seeing that you get nothing from them - ie no customer care, no legal knowledge, no responsibilty , just a photo of a house you might like - why should you pay them anything?

linseed oil

is it not possible to buy a house by private sale as we did , with no agent just the seller

modicasa

yes certainly its possible to have a private sale, and then you pay nobody. HOwever, if you ahve a private sale on paper, but you have paid an agent commission its illegal with heavy fines and sanctions, because ultimately its tax evasion.

DesiderataSicilia

I bought my house through a private sale using a local avvocato / solicitor who was very thorough and spotted a number of important issues including rights to water very important here if yu live as I do in the country. I also had a geomatra
a sort of Italian surveyor check the structure utilities subsidence etc .report allowed me to cut the price by a substantial amount. My costs were 1000 for the solicitor 600 for the geomatra and 10000 for the notario. My advice is to avoid using an estate agent here . If I had done it would have added another 10K to the costs.

modicasa

So you are saying that you paid 250.000 euros for your property and only paid hte notaio 10.000?

DesiderataSicilia

9700 to be precise. Are you saying I paid too much?

modicasa

SO you are saying that had you used an estate agent you would have paid him more than the value of the property? I doubt it.
You paid 9700for a property and paid 11600 in fees then someone ripped you off yes.