To Buy or Not to Buy

Author: Mia

That is the question…

These past several years we’ve been on something of a where-in-the-world(?) house hunting quest. Initially, back in 2017 we visited Lisbon and Carvoeiro, Portugal to explore and determined that we very much enjoyed both and they stayed on the list. In 2018 we set off for the Azores and in 2019 it was Menorca Spain, the smallest of the Balearic Islands.

With Menorca it was love at first sight and we focused our search on that beautiful island for many months, until one day, while watching a YouTube video, I learned that I was in fact eligible for dual citizenship in Italy through the maternal line. Our previous understanding was that this was not possible but the moment this guest attorney on the video spoke those magic words, I burst into tears. I also immediately emailed this same Italian attorney whose office was in Florence, to inquire about my eligibility. This was in February of 2021.

Since that day we’ve traveled several more times across numerous regions of Italy; East, West, North, the Lakes (love!) The Northiest part of the South, and finally, the South, if, strictly speaking, Sardinia can be called the South and not just its own classification, an island in the Mediterranean, Italian but also its own unique place, natural and beautiful.

Like many others before me, I had envisioned what my Italian town and home would look like. An amalgamation of places visited, movies (Think the hilltop villa with cypress tree lined drive in “Much Ado About Nothing”) architectural details from poring over countless properties on real estate sites, and a general dreamy fantasy of what our future lives in the country would be. And trust me, those fantasies always included stone and wood and gorgeous antique tiles and the sensual curve of rustic barrel ceilings and windows adorned with wooden shutters that when thrown open, looked out upon green undulating hills with endless rows of vineyards, possibly in full-autumnal glory, and oh yeah, throw in a lemon tree for good measure! 😛 Well then, *cough cough*, as The Rolling Stones so astutely observed, “You can’t always get what you want, But if you try sometimes, well, you might findYou get what you need”.Just so.

So where, exactly geographically, does that leave us now, in our search or in our purchase? Not exactly where we expected or thought we wanted. Not with a vineyard view, not by the beautiful lake towns in the North, or with perhaps the architectural details we initially thought so important. We shifted our search area when we found out about a tax advantage for the Southern regions. The gist of it is – Find a town with a population of 20,000 or less in one of several Southern regions, and only be taxed at 7% for a period of 10 years. Wow! Look into what taxes can be (and are!) elsewhere in Italy (up to 43%!) and the way forward became apparent…