Who can sell a house in italy

[adriatica]

A question for all the experts on house sales and buys here

Is it true that for anyone to be shown a house for sale in a commercial sense… i.e. not the owner , or not for gain that person has to be a registered and qualified mediator..

Would it then be the case that say an agency with several people employed that were not registered or qualified to carry out this activity would be carrying out an illegal activity, which at the start would lead to a fine and could end up with a prison sentence if they were found to be continually practising in this way if they send their employees or self employed house sellers that are not registered out with clients unless the registered agent accompanies them.

Does this mean that if anyone has a problem with a house sale with one of these people that are not qualified that they have no protection under law although the person named in carrying out this is liable to the fine. That the client shown houses either by totally non qualified agencies with no mediator registered or even with one mediator registered but shown by a non qualified and illegal /abusive person has less recourse under law than someone that actually is shown a house by a qualified mediator and after which if there are problems found they should have been knowledgeable enough to have pointed these out. Indeed that this is their duty under law.

Why am I asking these questions. It seems to me there must be some sort of definitive answer to all these problems and that if we start at the base of the Italian law… which basically says in my mind anyone that shows a house for commercial gain must be qualified and registered. That the presence of one qualified person in an agency does not then allow unqualified people to perform this role. So that at least from the very start when someone attempts to start the process of a house purchase here they at least know that there is a question to ask before all… show me your qualification .

So we have various qualified people on this forum, can we get or is it possible to give a yes or no answer.

[DavidandLinda]

Good question! As we understand it all Italian estate agents have to take an exam and be registered/qualified. So as you say does that mean that every person in any one office is qualified? Wonder how many of us who have purchased here actually any saw any professional qualifications from their estate agents!?

[gardahomes]

no, not everyone working in the agency has to be qualified and iscritto - last time I checked, for the company (a societa' di capitali, there are different rules for different types of company) to be iscritto (the entire company), only the rappresentante legale has to be iscritto as an individual. I am talking about companies registered in Italy of course.

I think you'd find it extremely difficult to find a single estate agency in Italy where every employee is iscritto individually.

Charles has already answered this question actually: see here
http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/sho...6&postcount=30

[Marc]

Good question Adriatica!

There are a number of different aspects to an estate agent's work; marketing, accompanying people on visits, the para-legal work (preparing contracts, checking Land Registry data) and negotiation beyween vendor and buyer.

Bearing in mind the high estate agency fees demanded of buyers in Italy, they are entitled to insist that the qualified agent is personally involved in every step and doesn't delegate tasks to unqualified members of their staff. Of course, some things, such as accompanying customers on viewings, may be safely handled by staff. The problems arise, as we've seen in the current hot topic elsewhere in the Forum, when unqualified staff associated with an agency start to make false or uninformed representations about properties, in the absence of the qualified member. As I see it, it's a bit like having your teeth cleaned by a dental nurse; its fine if its done with the dentist close at hand to supervise, but were a dentist to set up a network of outposts staffed by unsupervised dental nurses, the whole situation would change drastically.

One of the problems with the structure of the estate agency business in Italy is that the moment a client views a house with an agent, they are effectively engaging that agent as their legal advisor. My advice would be for buyers to interview the agency about their business structure, experience and fees before they agree to visit any houses. There's no point in finding the perfect house, if the agent doesn't have the wherewithal to help you buy it securely, unless the price is so good that you can afford to pay the agent and get independent legal and technical advice too.

[adriatica]

as far as i understand the law 39/89 the role of the mediator constitutes an activity which is reserved and non delegable...

obviously an estate agency can and does have secretaries and house scouts even clients scouts... eg marketting has to be allowed ... but the actual person that shows a client a house if i am reading the law correctly has to be a person legally qualified and enrolled as a mediator, if that person is doing it as a profession and requiring a fee for the sale/purchase of the house... from the client...

otherwise what you find is and this is why i believe so many people are running into house purchase problems ... you are visiting a house or houses with someone ...

... who is working on a very small percentage of the estate agents fee...generally less than half a per cent... so they are desperate to get you back to the office and get the sale.... not for the just for the half per cent... that is incidental... but they will have made arrangements with the owner of the house they sell you.. privately...

the estate agent will get his 3 per cent from the seller and the buyer

... but the house scout person will have this private arrangement with the seller for a fixed fee ... but only some of these houses will have this extra hidden bit....

why because they will be ones where the owner knows they will be hard to sell... so he is willing to give a scout quite a big chunk to get rid of it... hence the reason you dont get shown houses that are easy... they could even sell these to italians... you get shown the houses that the scout will get the biggest chunk out of.... and are persuaded to choose it...

apart from often these are properties with the most problems ... they will have taken you around other properties first at worse conditions and they will tell you the prices ... .. generally very high made up prices for that day only... so that when you arrive at the one they want you to buy it will almost seem like a bargain...

that way the next day when they go back and tell the owners of the other houses that their house didnt sell but that another one did they can then tell the owner look give us an extra few thousand and it will be your house that sells next...

now if an estate agent does this sort of work he is liable and punishable under law and you as a buyer have a protection as does the seller ... but no one controls the proffesional desperate to earn house scout... so you have to remember when buying from an agency operating in this way ... to be doubly careful...


so it seems to me the definitive answer is to say when you want to go around houses that at least one of the people accompanying you has to be registered and qualified to show houses for gain... this person then is legally responaible and punishable if he tells you direct lies or even withholds anything he knows of the property..... good or bad ...

now if you deal with a reputable agency that last part is very important..

because most reputable and honest agents will before they sign a contract to sell the house make the seller provide all the legal documentation on the house... who owns it,how many, what building is legal , what part isnt, certificates ... they will then visit the house and check the house against the documentation and at that stage they will agree to sell it or not ... which is why here in italy there is a perception that people dont like using estate agents to sell their houses much... its the ones that dont like too much checking that tell this story... because in reallity which registered agent that can earn a few hundred thousand euro a year is going to ruin it all over a house sale involving a few thousand.. in truth most registered agents if the seller tries to hide something from them will not even take on the sale of the house... it is not worth the penalties involved if something does go wrong...

SO THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER IS ...

make sure the person showing you a house is the registered agent that before he even gets on the road to show you the house he is carrying the full file of the house with him with all its legal details... a reputable agent will already have quite a thick file of papers on a house from the seller

and that you carry a voice activated recorder to all discussions regarding the house in full view of the agent...

these two little things will be the surest way of starting off on the right foot at least ... and anyone that cannot provide someone registered to show you the house should be avoided ... dont forget its your money and they should be following your little whims and your rules if they want to take it from you...

[adriatica]

marc... we think alike i think... yours is a lot more concise... i was trying to explain the perils... the conclusion pretty well the same... a very good post

[Marc]

At the risk of this turning into a mutual back-patting-fest, I agree with you John, that an agent should be able to show a client documents about a house, right from square one.

[manopello]

John

If only you could position yourself at Pescara Airport and intercept all the newbie prospective buyers you would be saving a lot of heartache and expense! However I think that you may find yourself in a sticky situation too??

Can I just please ask anyone on this forum to pay VERY close attention to this thread if you want to buy a house in Abruzzo and elsewhere?

If you think it's all complete tosh then by all means disregard it We did ! But to be fair we didnt even know about this forum when we viewed and made an offer.

Yes ask to see paperwork for the house WHEN YOU VIEW but this is Italy so if you just ask on the day you will be very lucky to see it..give the agents warning that you will want to see the paperwork for every house the agent's Scout shows you.Look at the plans and see if everything in front of you is actually on the plan!!It isn't always!

Do not get carried away by seemingly low prices! easy to say but as John states it happens.We were lucky to be shown a couple of places owned by a local up for sale and he was asking 25,000 for a nice old stone house in the hills above Pescara.We figured that around that price for a 2 bed restoration job was ok,with a garden and less work..30-50,000.If you can see a couple of places for sale locally try .Often you see a for sale sign posted on the door and a phone number..phone and ask the price!

I don't know really what the answer is for these agents who are possibly skirting the law as it seems to exist? Perhaps writing and asking for clarification?The problem is that if most of the buyers are happy with their house then they are not going to do anything and new people will not be aware.

I'd like to be able to add some of this as a 'reflection' on my web site perhaps with a link for a site where the legal side is explained.As I said before I am unqualified to give legal advice but an opinion of these practices would I am sure be of interest.

[trullomartinafranca]

Originally Posted by adriatica

as far as i understand the law 39/89 the role of the mediator constitutes an activity which is reserved and non delegable...

but the actual person that shows a client a house if i am reading the law correctly has to be a person legally qualified and enrolled as a mediator, if that person is doing it as a profession and requiring a fee for the sale/purchase of the house... from the client...

Brill post Adriatica,
just to clarify, is it possible then, that if anyone other than the agent were to show the property that any contract signed with the agent could be classified as invalid? Guess it would be difficult to prove unless of course you had followed your tip two. I'm talking about retrospectively in this case obviously.

SO THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER IS ...

make sure the person showing you a house is the registered agent that before he even gets on the road to show you the house he is carrying the full file of the house with him with all its legal details... a reputable agent will already have quite a thick file of papers on a house from the seller

and that you carry a voice activated recorder to all discussions regarding the house in full view of the agent...

these two little things will be the surest way of starting off on the right foot at least ... and anyone that cannot provide someone registered to show you the house should be avoided ... dont forget its your money and they should be following your little whims and your rules if they want to take it from you.

This is the best bit of advice, everyone turn into moles and take your spy kit with you, we'll flush out the b******s!
Well, assuming we can get this message out to all prospective buyers!

[adriatica]

trulli that is the difficulty ... if you have the go between acting between the client and agent but you pay the agent not the go between the agent can then say the go between was supposed to have advised of all relevant details and it is then there fault ... that way you then have to sue this go between ...who not being covered by the strict legislation pertaining to legal mediators is i would think much more difficult....
thats an opinion ...

the metholody to avoid this sort of problem in the first place which might help people in the future is to follow what i have said... and thats virtually fact

manopello i think you have missed my point a bit... the normal estate agent here will market the property at the correct price...that is also a function under law of the legal mediator ... valuing the property correctly.. a normal estate agent will also if you request to see a house from a site show you it... and also a selection of other houses in or around the same type... some with more or less work ... but each house you see the agent should have a file already available to check details for you .. so no you will not be lucky to see it ... and i explained the normal estate agent will not even list a property he has any doubts over and would never list a property without checking the relevant details from the paperwork... you seem to have a very strange idea from your experiences about how estate agency...or the mediating system works ... and basically never let a scout show you around anything.. if the company/agent wants to sell a property get them up off their backsides and make the responsable person show you it... if they say there are just too many clients and property for one person to show... tell them it would then be advisable for them to invest in the education of some of the people working for them to attempt the exam... pass and register ..and then be able to work for a more reasonable wage and a better percentual of the deal..... and take your bussiness elsewhere ...because if the mediator tells a lie to you or misleads you i can then answer trullis question ... the contract is not legal and the mediator is sueable... and the mediator cannot justify something wrong ...with the statement the seller lied or i didnt know... because the mediator which is maybe why they charge what they do is legally responsable for checking that the seller hasnt lied and he/she has not missed something.....

at the best this system works very well at the worst its a nightmare... at the best i agree with the notary on here... you wouldnt even need a lawyer ... at the worst you will just end up needing a heap of them....

it depends on profesional integrity and pride... there are a lot that offer that... to make sure follow the buyers rules and dont let the agents tell you what to do... the client is in charge... if they dont accept that walk away