Capitolo Quattro: Why Not Throw in A Bureaucratic Hurdle or Two?
Welcome to Chapter 4 of my posts on our DIY renovation of our tiny Italian villa! If you didn’t already catch them, click the links to read Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. In this post, I’ll discuss the number one reason which frustrates expats living in Italy: red tape.
Bureaucracy (or burocrazia) was practically invented by the Italians, or so it seems. When you plan to move to Italy, if you speak to anyone who has made the transition, you’ll always hear some horror stories about how long it took them to do a simple task like signing a mortgage document, the convoluted process for obtaining a driver’s licence and the administrative hurdles in place in the immigration system. So, moving to Italy, we prepared for the worst.
Many people experience worse administrative debacles than we have encountered, to be fair, but we’ve had our share of issues dealing with governmental authorities. One can say in any country there are similar issues in bureaucracy, but the fact is that much of Italy remains behind the times in terms of online ease of accessing government services, maintaining records and lack of clear or consistently applied procedures. For example, many Italians still line up at a post office to pay bills or taxes in person. Online services are just beginning to take effect, but getting access to the systems are not so straightforward. Some government agencies use email, but they are notorious for not replying.
We had our first taste of Italian bureaucracy while applying for our visa back home. After the embassy cancelled our appointment, having changed its procedure, we sent several unanswered emails to figure out what to do. We finally decided to apply in person but were rejected when trying to drop off the application in person and pay with cash (per the instructions on the website). Sigh.
When we arrived in Italy, we were uber-prepared for what we needed to do immigration-wise and hence we stupidly believed bureaucracy would have no hold over us. Months later, at yet another appointment at the immigration division of the Questura (the police) we realized we had unknowingly become part of the Italian red tape about which we were warned.
Especially in the south of Italy, the laid back and slow pace of life can be confusing. On one hand, southern Italians take their time, things get done at a snail’s pace to work around the drastic heat waves; but on the other hand, they also seem to add needless steps to seemingly simple tasks turning a one-hour process into a two-month fiasco.
When it came to purchasing our tiny villa, we ran into no major obstacles until a week before closing the sale. Prior to this time we had sought a legal opinion on our status and whether we could purchase property as Canadians (there was a new Canadian law which forbade foreigners from property purchases in Canada which had a reciprocal ban in Italy against Canadians). Despite our due diligence and the assurances received, a week before closing the sale we were told the notary couldn’t complete the transaction (which we had, of course, paid for in advance). We compromised after a last minute scramble of efforts and decided to proceed with only one of us on the deed.
An hour after arriving at the notary’s office, we were informed that, nope, even though I was a legal resident in Italy, the sale couldn’t be completed as the Canadian property regime forbades the sale to only one of us. [As a side note, this is completely incorrect, Canadians can own property separately from their spouses, though unless otherwise specificed in a marital agreement, property owned separately is still included in the calculations when a couple separates….in case you were wondering about Canadian legal intracies.] But alas, we are in Italy where notaries rule the land as the highest public authority, so what they say goes regardless of whether it makes sense to you.
Luckily, we found a suitable compromise and while we await the final closure of the transaction, we are living in and renovating the villa. Whew. While this situation is a particularly rare event given our status, a peculiar Canadian law, and one notary’s views, the lesson is that you don’t expect to come to Italy and not run into some frustrating administrative hurdles.
Our next taste of red tape was trying to register that we lived at our address. Italians are required to register with the Anagrafe Nazionale at the local Comune. If you move, you need to change your registration. The problem we faced was that our house had no civic address to speak of. The deed to the property had no number and listed a street which was nowhere near the house. Strange. It was interesting to get our hydro and insurance set up without an actual address. Our neighbours with whom we share a driveway had a posted number out front. Presumably, this was the number we should be using. Google Maps was even happy to use that number.
My first trip to the Comune proved confusing. The posted number, I was told, was the vecchio (old) number and the Comune had assigned new numbers at some point in the past without, evidently, informing the residents. So our actual address number had to be assessed by someone from the Comune. I gave a man at the Comune building my old address and phone number and he said he’d come by the next week. Sure, we’ll see about that.
Surprisingly, he did show up and I met him at the gate. Another man confirmed the posted number was indeed old, and a new one needed to be assigned. They took a guess at what that number would be, checked the neighbouring houses didn’t have that number already assigned and then took out a trustie Sharpie to stencil the number on the wall. He told me to take a photo of it as proof. Seriously.
The fun didn’t stop there, I went back to the Comune to then register at the new number, having the official Sharpie marker stamped photo to prove my address. Despite just having someone come out to confirm where I lived and assign an address, I still needed to wait up to 45 days for a local police officer to check up on me. After that visit at some random time a few weeks later, back to the Comune for visit number 3 to obtain an appointment to get an ID card. Visit number 4 was 5 minutes and I was given a paper with my ID information at the Sharpie markered address. Finally, I was sent a card by registered mail, which I had to pick up at the post office weeks later. Success.
What lessons have we learned from these tests of our patience, you wonder? First, when I approach a meeting at the local government in Puglia, I prepare all my documents, plus a selection of other documents that should be irrelevant but they may ask for nonetheless; I look up key words in Italian I may need; I arrive early and I hope for the best but expect that nothing will be accomplished with the first kick at the can. It’s just the way it is. The French expression “c’est la vie” definitely comes in handy in Italy. As does the all the readily available wine.
More to come on Under the Puglian Sun: Adventures in Renovating Our Italian Villa. Don’t miss a post, follow the blog below!
Stay tuned for Chapter 5: Experiments in Our DIY Kitchen Refresh.