Desperate Father needs advice buying property In Italy

Toolman2001

Please can anybody advise me about buying property in Italy (Lake Como) area.
I am in the unfortunate position of having my 3 year old daughter abducted to Italy, after a long and very unfair legal battle (uk family courts) my little sweetheart is now permanently living in Italy.
I need to get an apartment for us to spend quality time together. (hotels and holiday lets are not working as she is getting older she wants her own toys etc) If I could finance the purchase of a small property, it would be great as she can have her own toys etc.
I believe i could recoup some of the cost by renting it out for holidays. The average rental cost for a weeks holiday range from £600 to £1200 per week for a small apartment sleeping 4 people.
I don't want to make a profit, just cover my costs and have a nice place for my daughter to spend weekends with me.
I am spending £150 per 2 nights at hotels or holiday apartments. I spend about 13 weekends a year visiting. This costs me £2k aprox per year. I have £110k equity in my house. Looking for property in Italy £150k to £200k.
Any advise is very much appreciated thank you in advance.

holly_hobby

Sorry to hear of your family difficulties - it must be very difficult.

I would think you will struggle to get a UK bank to finance a holiday home in Italy.

So the best bet is to release equity in your own home and purchase for cash -obviously you may have to tailor your pch price in Italy to the amount of capital that can be sourced.

With the available further advance being based upon your income/commitments and the surveyed value of the property.

Personally, I would think twice about such a purchase, due to the hit from a depressed property market and euro, which may make any future sale a loss.

But thats only my personal opinion - I do realise why you would want a permanent abode there.

Hope this helps

Holly

Annisele

I'm afraid I think you're going to struggle. Like Holly, I entirely see why you'd want to purchase in Italy - but I'm not sure the economics stack up.

I also think you'll find it near impossible to get a UK lender to lend on an Italian property. So, you'll either need to borrow against your UK property and buy cash in Italy, or you'll need to get an Italian lender to finance the Italian purchase, or you'll need to come up with some cash from elsewhere.

If you have £110k equity in your current house, then you're not going to be able to borrow £150k to £200k against it. However, borrowing in Italy may also be problematic. I don't know anything about Italian mortgage criteria, but presumably your only income in Italy would be from the flat - and I'd expect lenders to be uncomfortable about your (apparent) total lack of experience in the lettings business.

You'd also need to check Italian laws for letting property. I'd expect there to be a whole bundle of hoops to jump through (there are in the UK, including planning considerations), but I don't know about the Italian rules.

You'll need legal advice from an Italian lawyer, both about the business you plan to set up and about the Italian property - for example, you'd probably need a will to cover your Italian assets, and quite possibly many other things that I've never even heard of.

I think the Italian property plan would be a *huge* amount of hassle - and if you do buy, you'll be stuffed if your daughter's mother decides two months later that, actually, Germany is rather nice and she'd rather live there than Italy. Plus, the £2k a year you're spending on hotel bills isn't all that much compared to the potential loss you might suffer if Italian property prices and/or the Euro tank (though of course you have the possibility of a capital gain if the opposite happens).

Would other alternatives be possible? For example, if you're staying in the same hotel for 13 weekends a year, the hotel might be willing to store toys/clothes for you for a relatively small fee.

holly_hobby

Some good sound advice there from ANNI. OP .... and we do appreciate your motives, but our objective is to help prevent you getting burned in the process ....

How about, your D. coming to stay with you for part of the time too ? (although I don't know the politics of any family law arrangements that have been set).

Holly

Dave_Ham

Hi there,

With a 3 year old daughter myself, this is a terrible situation and I feel for you.

Unfortunately almost every other European country and I would have half an idea on their mortgage criteria, but not Italy.

From a mortgage perspective, you could raise money out of your property for sure and then would need to seek out an Estate Agent/Bank in Italy to understand the mortgage possibilities.

Most over European Banks are quite liberal with lending if a sufficient deposit it put down - 50%-60% usually. Typically they all have many other invisible taxes and charges than we do in the UK so be careful.

I would possibly advertise on a few websites what you are looking to do, as I have clients with properties in France, Spain, Portugal particularly who have been trying to sell properties for years and holiday let. For an injection of cash, they may well pre-book some dates for you each year and allow you to leave some toys etc. there.

Google near where your daughter is staying and then look for a privately rented property with a .co.uk website and they may well be an English owner you can have a sensible conversation with. After all they want people on a holiday let basis and you would be there best client and not just fair weather, sure you could negotitate a better price and make it homely.

I genuinely do wish you all the best.

toolman_2

Thank you all for your advice, but as usual i am probably going against the advice given and pursuing the possibility of buying a property in Italy.
Any further advice is welcome regarding pitfalls and best rates etc.
Can i borrow from UK lender or will Italian bank be better?

Regards
Gary

lottiegirl

We brought in italy 6 years ago, we have an italian morgage with Barclays (italian division) very easy to arrange. All done via italy not in UK, much lower rate of interest than uk, but has to run over 25 years-no overpaying or paying early. We have an italian bank account and transfer the morgage money via moneycorp .
Not sure best rates etc as things have changed considerably ie exchange rates since we brought.
Holiday Renting is always interesting and throws up problems.
We brought mid Italy .
Being non resident means we get a lower supply of electricity, so things trip if multiple things on , but you can pay extra , and people have got round the residency and "become resident"
Always helpful to speak the lingo!
Good luck .

DannyboyMidlands

Buying sounds like a stupid idea to me. What happens if the mother moves a hundred miles away or two hundred or to another country? Are you gonna buy a place there as well?

I'd get the daughter a bag for her toys and stick with the hotels/holiday appartments.

Conrad

I arranged a few deals mainly with Barclays for properties in Calabria, Italy a while back but it is far from easy. IF you are serious and capable, then contact some brokers, but expect to pay up front fees and brokers have to weedle out the time wasters and dreamers.

You will need at least 30% deposit and of course rates are high in view of the Euro crisis of which Itlay is very much at the centre of the storm.

The lenders will view affordability in terms of your existing commitments and the new one.

Soory to hear about your Daughter, that's the worst thing that could happen to me.

davemorton

Looking at it another angle.
Could you not buy somewhere to rent out in the UK, and use the income from that to pay for rent of a place in Italy? Rental income paying rental out-goings?

ScotlandM

While you're over in Italy next time spend an extra day or two looking around at the current holiday lets or rentable rooms.

Is there a possibility of buying a static caravan? I can imagine you want to give her the best and to make her weekends with you perfect but your numbers don't add up to 200k 4 bed house, and much smaller won't be rentable

Day dreaming it sounds perfect if you could find an old couple and rent a room from them for a year. There'd be the space you needed if you could trust them and they wanted just a bit extra without having a lodger 24/7.
My girlfriend is Hungarian and I'd dread it when we have kids if we break up.