5 Mistakes Foreign Buyers Make When Purchasing Property in Italy

Italy remains one of Europe’s most welcoming markets for foreign buyers. There’s no blanket ban on foreign ownership, and the legal process is well-documented and notary-driven. But “welcoming” doesn’t mean simple. Every year, foreign buyers run into the same handful of avoidable problems, usually because they’re applying assumptions from their home country’s real estate process to a system that works quite differently. Here are five of the most common.

Mistake #1: Not Confirming Eligibility to Buy Before Falling in Love With a Property

EU, EEA, and Swiss citizens can buy Italian property with essentially no restrictions. Everyone else needs to satisfy what’s known as the “condition of reciprocity” — Italy will allow you to buy only if your home country allows Italian citizens to buy property there, or you hold a valid Italian residence permit. In practice, this works out fine for buyers from the US, UK, and Australia, among others. But it isn’t automatic, and it isn’t the same for every nationality: Canada, for example, generally can’t rely on reciprocity following a 2023 change to Canadian foreign-ownership rules.

The mistake buyers make is assuming this is a formality that gets sorted out at the very end. It shouldn’t be. Your notary will check reciprocity as a matter of course before the deed can be signed — but if there’s a problem, you want to find out before you’ve fallen in love with a property, made an offer, or signed a preliminary contract, not after.

Mistake #2: Budgeting for the Purchase Price and Nothing Else

Foreign buyers frequently plan around the listed price of the property and get blindsided by the actual cost of closing. Total transaction costs in Italy typically run somewhere between 10% and 15% on top of the purchase price for non-resident buyers, and the biggest line item by far is registration tax (imposta di registro) — generally around 9% of the property’s cadastral value for a second home bought from a private seller, calculated on the cadastral value rather than the purchase price. On top of that, budget for notary fees (roughly 1–2.5%), agency commission (typically 2–4% plus VAT), and legal and translation costs.

Non-residents also don’t qualify for Italy’s reduced “prima casa” tax rate (which cuts registration tax to around 2%) unless they commit to transferring residency to the property’s municipality within roughly 18 months — something many second-home buyers have no intention of doing. Skipping this math early is one of the most common (and most expensive) planning mistakes.

Mistake #3: Skipping Proper Due Diligence Before Signing Anything

It’s tempting to treat the preliminary contract (compromesso) as a low-stakes formality — a placeholder before the “real” paperwork. It isn’t. Once signed, it’s a binding agreement, and your deposit (caparra) is on the line if you walk away without proper cause.

Before signing anything, a buyer should confirm the property’s legal and urbanistic status: does the structure match what’s registered with the land registry (catasto)? Are there any building irregularities, unresolved liens, or inheritance disputes attached to the property? This is typically where an independent surveyor (geometra) and your own legal counsel earn their fee — and where buyers who try to save money by skipping independent representation often end up paying far more later untangling a problem that due diligence would have caught.

Mistake #4: Misunderstanding the Notaio’s Role

This is one of the most common, and most consequential misunderstandings foreign buyers bring into an Italian purchase. Coming from a common-law background, it’s natural to assume the notaio functions like a notary public back home: someone who simply stamps and witnesses documents. In Italy, the notaio is a far more powerful figure, a hybrid between a lawyer and a public official who is the only person authorized to validate a property deed and give it legal effect.

Crucially, the notaio is required to remain strictly impartial between buyer and seller, they are not “your” advocate, even though buyers conventionally choose and pay for them. Some foreign buyers mistakenly assume the person they’re paying is working in their corner the way a personal attorney would, and are surprised when the notaio won’t advise them on negotiating strategy or push terms in their favor. 

Understanding this distinction, and bringing your own independent legal counsel alongside the notary process, makes a real difference in how smoothly the transaction goes. For a full breakdown of exactly what a notaio does, how they’re chosen, and what the closing (rogito) process actually involves, Dolce Living’s guide to the notaio’s role in Italian property purchases is worth reading before you get anywhere near a signing table.

Mistake #5: Assuming the Timeline Will Move at a Familiar Pace

Buyers used to faster-moving markets are often caught off guard by how long the Italian process takes, typically 60 to 90 days from an accepted offer to keys in hand, and sometimes longer. Notaries are in short supply relative to the population and manage a high volume of transactions, so appointments often need to be booked well in advance. 

Add in translation requirements if you’re not fluent in Italian, and the back-and-forth of due diligence, and a rushed timeline expectation is one of the more common sources of frustration for foreign buyers who haven’t done this before.

The Bottom Line

None of these mistakes are unusual, and none of them are fatal to a purchase, but every one of them is avoidable with the right preparation and the right people in your corner early, rather than brought in to fix a problem after the fact. 

Understanding how the Italian system actually works, rather than assuming it mirrors your home country’s process, is the single biggest factor separating a smooth purchase from a stressful one.