Estate agents in Italy are hardly ever exclusive – a vendor will put their house on sale with as many agents as possible. Your only obligation as the client is to purchase through the agent that first introduced you to the property even if you then proceed to view the property again with another agent or the owner themselves.

As is the UK, estate agents in Italy will display a lot of their most interesting properties in the windows of the agency, as well as in the pages of local property publications, flyers or websites. They will usually display a For Sale sign with their telephone number on the properties that they have exclusivity with, although many properties, especially in the more rural areas, may not display obvious for sale notices if they are registered with several agencies.

It is always worth visiting a selection of local agencies to discover those properties that may not be otherwise obviously on the market.

Once you are ready to begin searching for your dream property, you can book viewing days with estate agents before then determining how you get to Italy, where you stay and how you will get around once you are there. With some estate agents or agencies, you will even be able to book an inspection trip; where absolutely everything will be organised on your behalf – flights, transport, accommodation, viewing itinerary, meeting with solicitors or banks etc.

An estate agent in Italy will do much more than just help you find your new Italian home; they are usually happy to assist you in opening a bank account, sorting out a mortgage, obtaining your codice fiscal, obtaining your residenza and indeed anything else of a bureaucratic nature that will enable you to become the owner of a property in the country. They will also be happy to put you in touch with other professionals whose services you may require during the purchase process – solicitors, builders, surveyors, notaries etc

Once you think you have found the property you are looking for, and before you put in an offer (proposta d’acquisito), an estate agent in Italy should be able to provide you with the following on request:

- Confirmation of the sum total of all fees.

- The plans of the property and its land in relation to neighbouring properties in order to ascertain boundaries and rights of way, etc. (cadastral) and the plans of the property itself (planemetria) to ensure that no illegal changes have been made since they were last registered with the local town hall (comune).

If there are any additional clauses written into the contract; work to be done, existing mortgages to be paid off, building permits to be granted for example, then it is the responsibility of your estate agent to hold onto the cheque until the clauses have been adhered to. At which point the cheque will be passed to the vendor.

New regulations require an estate agent in Italy to officially register the preliminary contract within a month of signing if it was not signed in front of a notary (notaio).

So there we are, an Italian estate agent is good for many things above and beyond simply selling you’re a house; but as with every other step of the buying process it is imperative that you thoroughly research the reputability of your agent before selecting them. Being able to trust and rely on the person who is guiding you through what is really a life-changing process, is very important if your first step into real Italian life is to be a positive one.