First viewing trip

After the initial heartbreak and lockdown measures eased in Summer 2020, we felt it was the right time to travel over to see a bunch of houses in the flesh. We decided to drive from our home in Cambridgeshire in the UK to Lucca in Tuscany (a 2000 mile round trip /17 hours drive) so that we could take our own car to each viewing and be covid safe.

The drive was long, but filled with excitement at the prospect of finding our new home. The trip would be like our very own version of “A place in the sun / Househunters” without the camera crew and glamourous presenter. We shared our list of houses with our families and friends, who acted as our cheerleaders / replacement ‘Place in the Sun’ advisors.

Our wish list was quite flexible at this stage, but as we started to view properties most of these became non-negotiable

• A farmhouse with at least 3 beds, with some land and a good view

• Preferably a house with some character

• Good access to the Internet (for remote working)

• A good amount of land to grow fruit and vegetables, at least an acre

• Not too far from shops, main town/city

• Additional outbuilding(s) for conversion into a holiday let

• Not too large a renovation project

• Not a main road (safe for pets)

We made arrangements to view 7 different properties across Umbria and Tuscany over the 3 full days we were there, all of which looked pretty good on the website listings and on interrogation on Google maps for their locations. Our budget was anything from the 200k euro mark (not renovated) to 450k (good condition).

High ceilings of the Lucca house

• Property 1 - on the hills just outside Lucca
  POSITIVES: This was an old large semi-detached property with gorgeous views, original features and high beamed ceilings, its own land with olive grove, close to Lucca
  NEGATIVES: A large power line ran through the olive grove (not ideal). A back room that adjoined the garden had damp issues.

• Property 2 - Pescia, Tuscany

  POSITIVES: A pretty farmhouse, ready to move into, swimming pool, couple of outbuildings, lots of land.

  NEGATIVES: Terrifying driveway up to house (needed nerves of steel), rooms a little on the small side

• Property 3 - Chuisi, Tuscany

  POSITIVES: Semi-detached, ready to move in to. Walking distance to town, Cypress lined driveway, massive underground garage - perfect if you have a large fleet of vehicles! (which we don’t)

  NEGATIVES: Lots of cracks in new plaster (probably settlement, but a little unnerving), wouldn’t be able to have a swimming pool as in a restricted zone, no outbuildings

• Property 4 - Marsciano, Umbria

  POSITIVES: Beautifully renovated 2 bed farmhouse, ready to move in to, lots of tasteful adaptions made by its owners. Amazing views to Perugia, lots of land and its own little hobby vineyard and wine making facility.
  NEGATIVES: We needed to make adaptions to the ground floor (which was a garage / storage area) to get more bedrooms and living space

• Property 5 - Tuscany / Umbria border

  This was an uninhabited house with outbuildings, almost but not quite a ruin.
  POSITIVES: So much scope, but told by the estate agent we wouldn’t get a mortgage and the house was not for us!

  NEGATIVES: Out of our budget to renovate. Too remote. Horse fly central (our car got plastered with them on arrival), warned about vipers in the garden!

• Property 6 - Niccone Valley, Umbria

  A holiday home whose owner had gone on a permanent holiday back to her homeland.

  POSITIVES: None, unfortunately, as the estate agent forgot the keys and it was a 40 minute trip back to his office.

  NEGATIVES: from what we could see, the garden vegetation was invading the house.

• Property 7 - Preggio, Umbria
  POSITIVES: A beautifully converted mill property. Its own valley and stream, ready to move into with a swimming pool.
  NEGATIVES: Very isolated, at least 30 mins to the closest town. Netflix and home working probably unlikely.

The viewings were again another lesson in keeping your feet firmly on the ground, not to be led just by the heart, but to keep your brain fully engaged. As we drove back home we mulled over what we’d seen and what was our front runner. The Lucca house was our number 1, followed very closely by Marsciano.

Beautiful Marsciano, Umbria

As time passed and we hadn’t yet got the proceeds of our UK house sale through, we couldn’t put any offers in. This was just the start of what would be a long, arduous buying process. As we’ll explain later, you have to be serious to put an offer in on a house in Italy, and you have to lay down an early deposit, usually 1-3% of the asking price.

As things would have it, it wasn’t until November (when our UK house finally competed) that we could seriously enter an offer. By this time, the Lucca house had sold, and our interest in Marsciano had cooled, so much so that we instead decided to go rent somewhere first and secure our Italian residency before the Brexit deadline.