½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

a lot of the comments above to me at least show the importance of who you go through your project with... ok its impossible to know unless you live here who's who and whats what...so no blame attached ...just that if you are intending a large project in a remote area.... think at least twice...i have often said in the past that i would always go for a tired looking on the face of it modern building... with falling plaster off the outside walls and often very square shaped... generally due to grants during the last twenty years or so with good roofs if a rural property... and surprisingly priced at pretty well the same sort of level as rustic looking ruins....for me these properties represent maybe the best value.. check that they have meter thick walls... forget about internal dividing walls... they will often have mains gas... for sure electric water and drainage...what it means is that you get a semi habitable property with very few planning change problems ...often work can be done via a DIA... services can be re connected easily... any compromesso based on the owners providing you with all the details to do the change over...insisting the agent does this if yout ½ûÂþÌìÌà cannot handle it... and the you update with no probs regarding the certification to get a connection... the meter thick walls once uncovered reveal good quality stone work... pulling out gold aluminium double glazed windows and replacing with better quality nicer looking modern alternatives... etc etc...have done this twice here now... revealed vaulted ceiling brick arches and cut stonework under tired plaster... never ever bought a house without a good roof.. and structure... never had to apply for full planning and apart from installing a brand new mains gas supply never paid for any new service connections...  and basically the houses underneath the sort of sixties obsession with stucco plaster or whatever look [pretty good once you remove and re-point as any rebuilt pile of stones... without much of the hassle and for sure without the extorionate costssaying that most of what i have read here apart from sebastiano's post shows that unless you have good local contacts and a good knowledge of ½ûÂþÌìÌà law it will seem to me at least to cost you loadsthink a lot more... when you start looking...  the ugly place below the modern surface can be better... look for clues on whats there below...odd shaped ceilings...wide walls and any history on the date of the property being built.. an extra 10-20k  can save you a lot more in the future and often if you are planning to work on a property yourself its so much easier removing rather than starting from scratch in all ways .. but even more with bureaucratic hold ups or service suppliers ...

your right about the ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs and there small purchases... also young people i have seen buy as little as five... don't know why i have hit on the number but i always go for 30 euro... a fill up hits the 70 euro mark ... and i only do that when heading off somewhere.. senza piombo is more a habit thing...and you do hear people saying it but none of the filling stations here have any petrol with lead now anyway usually they check between diesel and benzinagetting to know a good local garage as regards price when living here can save you a lot of money... price seems to be creeping up again... and for us its worth when we are the other side of town near the commercial centre using the station there ... saving almost 10 cents a liter... these stations attached to supermarkets are becoming more common and whilst not worth making a special journey too ... i prefer the man or woman filling the car anyway...and they often clean the screen..  they also repair punctures etc.. on lawnmower or barrow tyres..and are generally helpful and knowledgeable on all car type things... plus they generally have a good local bar near by and let you park whilst getting a quick coffee fixi also out of habit always get out of the car and pay before they finsih filling up...say hello etc and then get back in the car... not to check that i get what i pay for... but just out of politeness... for me anyway... i sort of feel rude doing everything through the window

handy reference map... its an almost certain truth here in Italy...that if there is a river outflow where you are thinking of swimming that it is unlikely to be safe.... we have famous areas here... say Pescara beach... the river contaminates a large area... and most probably the most poisonous is the Sangro in the south of Abruzzo... which contains so much raw untreated sewerage its almost guaranteed that you will catch something.... if you swim in the coastal resort that is exits intoits a real shame when you see where theses rivers start ...fresh bubbling springs and what happens by the time they pass through a few towns or farm areas and what they become...its widely reported on news programs here and in newspapers about this problem regarding river outlets throughout Italy...in some of the most famous beach areas... and yet little ever seems to get done 

good to see other info coming in... and useful...  we could all do with saving a bit on coststhanks

you can pay in any agreed currency between vendor and purchaser.... as long as it is all registered and the money is recorded via bank transfers... certifiable cheques... money laundering legislation...  so alan is pretty well accurate..in essence the problem will be as in all things finding people agreeable or even knowledgeable enough to realise that this is all legal and within the law...from agents to notaries... however if there are problems regarding this and there shouldn't be ... just tell them to read up a bit and that it can happen...once again the stumbling block could or will be the money laundering ...and even if you change currency i would say its almost essential to pay via certified cheques... so that all involved can register the transaction with lots of photocopiesand like alan also says...taxs have to be paid in euro... but i would doubt you could get an on the day rate... technically it would be hard as the notary will want assigned cheques for both their fees and the tax payable so a rate would have to be assigned sometime before..... ie a week or so so that the calculations can be made to prepare the paperwork and also you will need to collect the assigned cheques on the morning of the act or the day before so will need to know the base to calculate on... you cannot pay in cash.....

any house which had an electric supply... ie if you have evidence of a mains supply... an old meter or wires hanging off the outside wall ...that sort of thing has a right to be re-connected...cost 180 euro... this is not dependant on pylons or any other factor regarding distance... the only thing that can add to that is the choice made by some property owners to bury cables closer to the house...the electric company will want to string it via pylons and to bury it you will have to pay for the meters under ground...in general achieved by your own contractor digging the trench and laying in a conduit pipe with a slight cost from enel....so look for the old supply and apply for a re-connection...never a new supply is my advice 

my emails do that...write long ones.. as you can imagine... full of dots... click send and a screen comes back and tells me that something timed out... its the bloody mobile Internet thing... temporary i hope... well i know...Ronald has just posted an up date ... and rather than switch screens will make you look for yourself... but hes added more buttons and given a progress report and i think basically hes going a long way to getting most of your request fulfilled...ie a today's post button.. post read button and planning to get topics a bit more ordered..there are also buttons at the bottom of the screen to allow you to click on subjects or allow you to post within them...much if not all you say i agree with... however the flexibility of this system and the amount of interest in the forum has i guess added to the confusion so that we have been posting in wrong places under wrong subjects... and it all does look a bit messy...  we have all to learn ... and the initial mess is gradually either being sorted or getting sorted by the admin...i am almost beginning to like it...almost... give me another couple of months and i might have an unequivocal like it.. Ronald ... not a dig... i know everything is being worked on.. just i take a long time to familiarise myself with thingsthere is the link below to Ronalds latest work on trying to get there...

a lot depends on where the comune or provincial area you are applying for historical papers.. would be intereting to know which area this was... as it seems like it should deserve a goold star in that respect...cannot remember his name but there is a new man (very short)running the government part of local admin who has brought in new rules and standards of response to requests ... could also be that that is working...although have my doubts... but its good to hear things look like being sorted... well done

the old forum... and have said it before but i had been there for something like seven years or so... was at first a pleasant place and then wasn't... reasons not worth going into apart from a general synopsis of how i see it... which some might disagree with.....for new people it had a sense of excitement maybe...with lots of point scoring... and a sort of infectious desire to watch who was going to be the next victim of various gangs,... much like i suppose TV dramas which go on and on... the difference is that the forum was real people some more able than others to argue their corner or post eloquentlyfurther the old forum suffered by organised participation off the forum...sites set up so that they can discuss what to do next in private and then meet back and as a concerted effort try and destroy a forum entity... for whatever reason ..valid or not in their minds... it became a very sad place if you happened to know what was really going on...i don't blame forum admin... have always thought people with real lives might have something better to do than pursue via open forum attacks or behind the scenes planning the destruction of either the old forum as a whole or various members that were not liked....added to that are the various sud sites which used the old forum via whatever means to drag people away and build their own sites... literally using the openness of the old site to set up their own businessso i am happier here with this format... my only postings so far have been to do with animals... because i believe i cannot be ridiculed or abused via these public postings the rest i leave to replies as they are not visible to people that have not joined...however i do know that there are some that have joined solely to re direct people to other forum sites or to report back in chat rooms as to how badly everything is going here...they wish... to me this site is a welcome relief from all the aggro deserved or not ... from the point scoring.... the biting... and god knows what else the old place had become... if anything i have a desire for the forum as i once knew it...long before certain members that thought they had the right to tell everyone either how the place should be run or who should and shouldn't be there... but i think this place despite the steep learning curve of a new system has all the past benefits of a forum to do with Italy and will turn into something that we will all be happy to be members of... despite the little worms crawling around that want it to fail there its been said but that's how i feel and i for one will be trying time permitting to help this place get off its feet... apart from that it also seems to be doing a pretty good job by itself and i think veronica and ronald are working more than hard to make sure it all works...i hope people stick with it... and if they have something to suggest PM either Ronald or Veronica and add to the place..  we can make of this what we will... if something is missing start a group... in essence the world is yours here and if people are interested in communicating with you they will join and the group will or can be a mini forum of your interests.. and others that are like minded

we always use these collars... they are sort of white plastic and last three to four months... which pretty well covers the season...and protects from all bugs....including the leish one...sorry spelling ...hate the word and the bug... available at all pet shops or vets...cost i think around 30 euro...they make them according to dog size... but if too long you just cut the end off... some cats i believe react badly ...but its a rarity in dogs to have an adverse reaction ...anyway to my mind its better than the  use of drops every month and it protects against a wider range of beasts... and fits alongside the normal collar