Buy  a property in Italy, the reciprocity condition

Before to buy a property in Italy, there is an important requirement that have to be taken into consideration : the reciprocity condition.
First check the reciprocity condition between Italy and your country is existing;
you will save much time and you do not you risk doing a lot of work to find your perfect home and at the end discover that you can not buy.

In compliance with the Italian Law (Art. 16 , General Provision of Law introducing the Civil Code) the foreign is allowed to benefit the same civil rights of the Italian citizen only if the Italian citizen can enjoy the same rights in the country of the same foreigner. The provision is also applied to  foreign legal person.

In those cases Italy has signed Bilateral Agreements in matters of promoting and protecting investments (Bilateral Investment Treaties or BITs) the provision acquires the nature of a “lex specialis”. Usually in this case the reciprocity condition is considered verified.

However the matters contained in the  Bilateral Agreements  have to be always checked and   the condition of reciprocity should be ascertained on a case-by-case basis.

It is be noted herein  foreigner means citizen of Countries are not part of the European Community.

In the most of the cases this is not a real obstacle for foreign buyers, but the lack of the reciprocity condition affects the validity of the contract itself , so the purchase is null.

A simple check can be done on the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website, the website is frequently updated . The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides with a full information concerning the current situation of the Reciprocity condition for each State in the matter of property purchase , mortgage and general investments.
All the world’ countries are listed and is expressed if the Reciprocity Condition is “verificata”.

In any case, better check the existence of the condition with your trusted notary.