Hi - the citizenship was through entitlement to an Irish citizenship as I had a grandparent born there.
The luck of the Irish ![]()
Jealous. My Irish heritage is a great grandmother. Not enough, and don’t have any documentation anyway.
If you are searching estate agents for a property, try using Google’s circle to search feature on selected photos. {if you have an Android phone}. It can show you all the other agents selling the same property and may even reveal it’s actual location.
This is a new estate and obviously some folks built to sell and I look on LBC for the commune most days to see if anything for sale (not property) catches my attention. Its easy to spot the houses for sale near mine by what is outside the window or view from the garden but I have noticed recently that some agents are closing blinds or shutters where an outside view is very prominent.
Thanks to Google Earth and Street View it’s much easier to pinpoint the exact location of properties now.
Thanks Stephen. I could get citizenship through my Italian parents, but have discovered it’s a long drawn out, complicated and expensive process, so not sure if I can go through it all!
Although photos could 10+ years out of date. Bad Google
Yes the Italian route is more complex - I’ve some colleagues considering same.
Hola…sounds like you are taking a great approach and if you already love the area in question, then you will for sure succeed!
We took numerous road trips to out search Departments and made appointments with agents to see loads and loads of houses. I’m doing this, we were able to refine our objectives and certainly say what we didn’t want and if you have a reasonable budget, then it’s a buyers market.
I recall one of the first things we did was to go to the local Orange store (you have to make an appointment) and got hold of contracts for mobile phones and 5g internet. Then, we faffed arounnd with getting a French bank account in order to get the ball important RIB and yes, a cheque book even though we already have accounts in NL. (first tried an online bank but their RIB was not acceptable). I’m the end, made an appointment with La Banque Postale and got all we wanted including some sort of long terms savings account.
Car insurance - went to FAB for brokerage and until you get your French Banking sorted, you can pay with a credit card.
The Carte Vitale is just a matter applying and being patient. If you are retired, then about 6 months, if your wife is going to register her business here as an auto entrepreneur, then much quicker. Lesson is to get some private insurance to bridge.
Oh..find a Notaire you can work with a sort out you will and the purchase en Tontine (if that’s what you want)..(plenty of good advice on this forum on the matter of inheritance).
All the utilities easy peasy especially if you French is up to scratch.
Getting used to the French lunch break took a while but now I just go with the flow.
I found you a house and hope you like it ![]()
Good luck and enjoy the journey!
Probably easier than French though, seeing your parents are Italian. In fact - if this isn’t an indiscreet question - why haven’t you already got Italian citizenship? Feel free to tell me to MMOB, of course.
I’m not sure gaining citizenship of any country is anything else than a long, drawn-out and expensive process.
They have the budget but €5,500 per m2 to live in a place that is over 60% second homes.?
I sold my US house the same way.Listed it myself on MLS and got a lawyer to do the closing. Still had to shell out 15k to the buyer’s agent , who did nothing for me, but that’s the US.
Thanks for this beautiful… we’re looking for something with more land so we don’t have any immediate neighbours
…it is well over priced isn’t it?
If you’re going to be rural, be aware that farmers are enslaved by the weather. If they have a small window to Do Vital Thing X in Field Y, they’re going to get it done regardless of it being 3am by having enough lighting on their tractor to illuminate a football field.
The other thing to remember is the parts of the views from your property that you don’t own can change overnight without your being consulted.
…I was not being at all serious and that place is a wee bit over priced too. I suspect you will be able to find a great place with your budget that ticks all the boxes ![]()
I did it myself in the US 8 years ago. It did take me about 2 months of solid detective work followed by 18 months of waiting.
I’m not too sure how long the usual administrtive process takes in places outsideof Italy. They changed the law to make it much more restrictive. Whether that made the timescale faster for hose who qualify, I do not know.
It used to be that going to Italy to apply at a comune was the fast path. Likely still is if you can afford to do it.
Having lots of land is great if you like cutting grass etc, we had an acre at our last house and from April through to October cut the grass every week to keep it manageable, add in trimming trees and hedges it took up a big chunk of our free time.
Way over even the top price per m2 for that commune! Looks like a fairly recent renovation so my guess is the owners are wanting a sale price that covers all those costs on top of purchase price.