Here we go again

Life back in Yorkshire is heaven, I am still clad in flip flops and enjoying time on our balcony as well as the delights of our region.  However Italian bureaucracy never stops.

Mario last week received and opened two registered letters, one for each of us from our friends at the Comune, we asked him to send a photo of the details.  Briefly they say work was carried out to our house back in 1980 without permission with no indication what this work might be.  At first we wondered if the original house had been built illegally or indeed all 4 in our road but our neighbour hadn’t received anything and thought it was the terrace.  

The terrace and a large room below were added at the front shortly after the house was built.  Mario told us the original owner was concerned the house might slip down the mountainside and imagined it would act as a sort of retaining structure.  When we bought the house 20 years ago we insisted that everything should be regularised, it is in our deeds that such permissions were the responsibility of the vendor and there is reference to payments being made to the Comune to do so. We paid for solicitors, a geometra (Italian surveyor) and the Notary to ensure everything was in order before we bought but the Comune are now asking for 6,000 euros to be paid within 60 days.

We have emailed asking for more information and sending details of the payments made though of course we don’t have the receipts.  I doubt this will do any good, when they said we owed 2 years refuse bills and we sent our receipts they didn’t do anything until we returned to the village and were able to go to the offices so we could queue for an hour then sit and watch them tap on the computer for half an hour before they agreed that we had paid everything at the appropriate time.

It’s beyond me why this has suddenly occurred 40 years after the offence if indeed there is one.  Speaking to a local he told us he had recently had to get retrospective permission for the house he built 50 years ago in order to benefit from the recent Ecobonus incentive giving grants of 110% for interventions like solar panels, double glazing etc.  Presumably he would otherwise never have bothered about permission.  

I am furious, I’d like to know why we have suddenly been targeted, it seems to be a selective money making exercise.  I cannot believe that over the last 40+ years the authority has never checked for unauthorised building work.  MrFF is furious because he will now spend hours and hours checking details and offering evidence they will be ignored.  He’s already asked for the documents to be sent as PDFs to us and for more details, they won’t send anything.  Although the vendor is technically responsible if there is a problem it will no doubt cost more than 6,000 euros to peruse him or any of the so called professionals involved. 

Of course the authorities have the right to demolish any unauthorised work if they could ever get themselves organised to do so.   It’s a pity we’ve just had the terrace retiled as I am tempted to say be my guest at least we haven't redecorated the room below.  More likely they will just keep adding interest to the fine. I never realised when we bought the house that it is the custom that the only foreigners in the village will be responsible for funding the Comune.