So, we want to buy this house in Spelunca. We have already visited the place (it was a short vacation to Italy a few weeks ago), did all the necessary inspections, bargained the price, found a notary, paid the “compromesso” (advance deposit), fine-tuned the sale contract conditions, and organized extra agreements with the current owner. The sale proper will happen somewhere end October, when the house is going to be ready for the handover and we get the keys. This is when the final “atto” (deed) will be signed in front of the notary.
Only thing is, we do not want to go back to Italy only to sign the deed. My parents will help prepare the house to be habitable, if possible we don’t want to travel again until everything is ready for us to sleep there. So we need a “procura speciale” (Power of Attorney Letter).
The Procura Speciale
This is an official document where we (Mei-Lin and I) give power of attorney to some trusted third party (my dad, in this case) to complete all administrative procedures on our behalf. This document is prepared by our notary in the “legalese” language, and it includes provisions for, e.g., signing the deed and performing a wire transfer for paying the owner. This is important because when we will move a large sum of money from our bank to my dad’s bank (or to the owner’s) this will trigger the anti money laundering spell wards, and we will receive a request from some financial institution to prove that the transaction has been done in accordance to the existing regulations.
But this document must be recognized by our notary in Italy as authentic, without us being present there to sign it, and you know what this means. We will have to perform a legalization of our signatures from Switzerland.
The “Prima Casa”
The power of attorney letter from the notary also serves another purpose: In that letter, Mei-Lin has to declare that all the funds that we use to buy the house come from my personal, pre-marriage wealth, and that she gives up any claim whatsoever on the house as it’s my possession only, even if in Switzerland by default married couples share all acquired estate. First of all, because that’s actually the case, that cash comes from an old bank account where I saved money before I met Mei-Lin. But, most importantly, because of the “prima casa” (first house) law.
See, if you buy a house in Italy there is a big difference, in terms of taxation and fees, on whether it’s your “first house” (e.g. the only house you own, and where you want to take residence) or not (e.g. you buy a house for investment). The law here is tricky. For example, if you are Italian citizen AND resident in Italy, and you buy a house as “prima casa”, you get a lot of advantages, but you must move your residence there within 18 months, which is clearly not what we want. For non-residents, the situation is a bit more obscure: yes, it’s our first house technically, but we are resident abroad. Can we have the benefits of the “prima casa” (without having to move there within 18 months) regardless?
It turns out that, yes, we can! But only under certain conditions:
- You must be Italian citizen.
- You must not own other real estate already.
- The house must be located in Italy, either in your “comune di nascita” (birthplace town) or, if you are born abroad, a town where you spent at least X working or studying years.
These conditions tick the boxes for me (except that my parents live near the border with another town neighboring Spelunca, so we had to be careful to discard all those locations across the border, although some of them were pretty nice), but clearly do not work for Mei-Lin (remember, she is still waiting for her Italian citizenship application to be accepted, it will take more or less 200 years), and it’s not clear if they would work even if she had Italian citizenship already. So, getting her off the house ownership is the only solution we have right now to access the “prima casa” benefits (which we really need if we want this to be financially sustainable).
The Asylum
The Asylum offers the service we need (legalization of signatures on notary documents) at a decent price for Italian citizens and, so I’ve been told, their relatives.
So I call the Asylum’s Notary Office.
11:59 autoresponder.
12:00 autoresponder.
12:01 autoresponder.
12:02 my mobile number gets banned by the Asylum’s magic wards, probably because I am calling too many times too fast (no joke). We keep calling with Mei-Lin’s phone. AYFKM.
12:03 autoresponder.
And so on until a few HUNDREDS TIMES LATER it’s about 12:30 and we realize that the phat ass of the person who was supposed to pick up the phone at the Notary Office of the Asylum was too heavy this morning to be lifted from its f***ing bed. A Y F K M CURSE ON YOU.
I decide to call ALL numbers from the Asylum’s website until I find a human whom I can vomit all my rage to ask to kindly connect us to someone to take an appointment SINCE THESE APPOINTMENTS CANNOT BE TAKEN ONLINE. The first one on my death list is the “social benefits and retirement pension” office.
SURPRISINGLY not only I manage to connect on the first try (with Mei-Lin’s phone of course), but the old guy on the other side is helpful (probably bored, maybe I found the ONLY office at the Asylum which does not receive many calls during the Holy Hour). He tells me that the Asylum’s notary office is typically more responsive by email. OK, this doesn’t excuse them from NOT picking up the phone during the SINGLE hour where they have the duty to, but I’ll send them an email. I include the power of attorney letter that our notary prepared and I ask for an appointment.
Auto-reply: “This office is unavailable until TOO FAR AWAY DATE. Your email will not be forwarded.”
I can’t even.
The Alternative Legalization
I am SICK and TIRED of dealing with these JOKERS, so I decide to go for another route. The Asylum offers this type of legalization as an “easy shortcut” (ahah!) for Italians in Switzerland, but I am now a veteran of legalizations, so I think I can figure out the correct procedure by myself.
I will go to legalize the power of attorney letter to a Swiss public notary. There is one just across the street where we live in Zerneve, and they only ask 20 CHF per signature. Then, I will bring the legalized document to the Staatskanzlei to affix an Apostille (in Italian) which should then finally make it valid for our notary in Spelunca.
On to work!
Are You Fucking Kidding Me 