Italian Diaries ..Number one.

After much prodding from friends and colleagues I have finall decided to enthrall the world with my daily experiences of Italian life.
These tales will not be consecutive or even form a pattern but will be random recalls from memory...sometimes from very dark recesses of memory.

Ok, here we go..
Buying a house in Italy:

My partner on the Reelshow, Mary Lou Brown and I, decided in circa 2000 to take some time out and visit the place where she had spent some great holidays as a child, Lignano Sabbiadoro. Italy.

This seaside resort is situated on the northernmost part of the Adriatic sea and is just along the coast from Venice.
It is indeed a great place for a summer holiday, great beaches ,bars ,restaurants, clubs, yachts etc.We liked it so much we rented an apartment there for a year...during that time we wrote a number of screenplays  and had a great time.
We  enjoyed ourselves so much we decided to buy a permanent place there so that we could just drop in at any time, as most of our work was sourced from the UK.

The original apartment we had rented for the year belonged to a prominent local family who had several apartment blocks in the area.We decided to take a short term rental with them until we found a place to buy..good idea we thought..and sure enough it turned out quite well..

The Father of the family knocked on our door one day to say he had an apartment for us to look at, it was for sale and was a new build, not on the coast but on the lagoon behind the peninsula .. a very pretty location.

The apartment was short drive away, 3 or four minutes, and our landlord kindly offered to take us to see it in his car...It was terrific, three bedrooms ,massive garden,large covered terraces. two car garage , parking area, secure entry..all of the things one needs....we decided to go ahead.

I will leave out the amazing problems of trying to raise a mortgage in a foreign country,particularly when one is a freelance, but eventually we managd it. The money was there.

We duly arrived at the lawyers office for the signing and handover.
This is a complex arrangement in Italy..one in which the officiating lawyer must leave the room whilst large brown envelopes .stuffed full of bank notes are trasferred from one party to another.

This has all to do with black money, tax money, real money,asking price money and the final sum...which is anybody's guess and may not be entirely legal...hence the missing lawyer.
Anyway the transaction is done..hands are shaken..keys and deeds handed over.

Mary Lou and I  were a little mystified by the presence of our generous landlord who had turned up at the office and who had sat through the entire procedure , and he was the first one to shake our hands, he was there as we had a celebratory glass of prossecco and he was there as we left the building , he was there  as we went to the car park and he followed us all the way home...to his apartment block. He was not quite so gushing  as we arrived as he had been all day and with a very curt nod he left us.
The following morning  we opened the front door to find a large bunch of flowers and a little note, saying our landlord would be visiting shortly to discuss the matter we had avoided yesterday....Mystified again, we waited and he duly arrived...to drop a bombshell.

Apparently he was due a fee...a finders fee...of five thousand Euros  about 4k$ US .

This fee was just for driving us to see the apartment...nothing else..we of course demurred in very anglo saxon terms  and then he enlighrtened us to what our lives would be like if we did not cough up.

We made enquiries locally and found that the fee musr be paid..it was  'The Way"

We paid up.

So buyers beware of the offer to escort you to look at a property from a kind neighbour in Italy.

More to come...lots more..