Your new home in Italy — hooked up for phone, water, sewage & gas?

The nature of the real estate that many of us buy in Italy (rural, remote, possibly an abandoned property) means it won’t necessarily have these services on tap. And the further the house is from the mains supply or the nearest telephone line, the more it will cost to hook up — making it more likely the previous tenants have done without.

The main utilities, though officially privatised now, are still largely in the hands of the old state monopolies: Telecom Italia for the phones, ENEL for electricity, SIG or Italgas for gas, and ACEA for mains water; you’ll find them in the Yellow Pages (Le Pagine Gialle). To register for your utilities you’ll need to produce your proof or residency, a photocopy of your passport and your bank details.

Italy real estate — electricity supply & bills

ENEL sends out estimated electricity bills (bollette) every two months. The meters are read twice each year and adjusted bills sent out. The bill will bear your account number (numero utente), the amount due (importo) and the date it should be paid by (scadenza). It will also have details of the bank account (conto corrente) to which you should make payment.

When you buy your new home in Italy, endeavour to have the estate agent transfer the supply into your name, it could save a lot of tedious queuing at the ENEL office. They’ll ask you for a copy of the previous owner’s paid bill, so ensure you get this: it’s no bad thing as it will save you having to query any overcharging later on.

Electricity supply in Italy can be very flaky. You want to run the tumble dryer and boil the kettle at the same time? Forget it. The power supply varies between 1.5kw and 6kw, though businesses get a higher wattage. Most Italian homes run on 3kw, which means if you put too much strain on the supply you’ll blow a fuse. This is the sort of thing that Brits and Americans just don’t have to think about at home, but it can be a massive pain. Imagine a complete blackout in the middle of a Tuscan winter night as you struggle to find the fusebox … and then realise that you hadn’t saved the work you were typing on the PC.

Italy real estate — get your wattage upgraded

There are ways to protect yourself: you can pay to have your supply upgraded to the maximum 6kw; and you can hire an electrician to install an uninterruptible power supply and a surge protector, even a backup generator so spikes in supply don’t blow up TVs and computers. You could also look at having solar heating installed: electricity in Italy is expensive but one thing the country does have a surfeit of is sunshine. But bear in mind this is very much a fallback and you want to have a mains supply too: a generator or solar power alone is unlikely to be powerful enough to run your home, with a sufficiently beefy diesel generator being prohibitively pricey.

Ensure that if you are having electrical work done that it is carried out by a fully qualified Italian electrician (elettricista), registered at the local Chamber of Commerce (La Camera di Commercio) as the work will be checked by an ENEL inspector. A big plus about Italy is the standard of work of tradesmen, with cowboys far less of a problem than you may be used to back home.

There are some oddities. Although meters are now installed outside properties for easy reading, in some old blocks there is a common meter, with the bill shared between the owners. This is bad news if you have bought your real estate in Italy as a holiday home, as you will be hit disproportionately hard for your share of the bill, being charged as if there 52 weeks a year.

Italy real estate — gas supply & bills

If you buy your home in Italy in a town, you’re almost certain to be connected to the mains gas. Again, bills go out every two months. Like all power sources in Italy, gas is expensive, though less so than electricity — it’s the reason you’ll see so many holiday lets advising extra charges for heating.

If you live in the countryside it’s highly likely you won’t be on the mains, and will draw your gas from a bombolone, a huge tank sited outside the house (at least 25m away for obvious reasons) or underground (safer and less ugly). This is a cheaper option than getting your home connected to the mains, and it’s cheaper than powering with electricity. A cheaper alternative to fit (though more expensive to run) is to use bomboli, the smaller gas canisters, mainly used for cooking though also for heating. If you are siting a canister outside, ensure that you use propane (which doesn’t change state with changes in temperature); butane meanwhile is for internal use only.

Italy real estate — water supply & bills

Depending on where you buy your real estate in Italy, water may be a plentiful resource or, to mix our metaphors, like gold dust. Sicilians don’t waste water and some outlying islands have no mains water at all, depending on tanks of fresh water brought in by ship.

The water supply is controlled by the local comune and may be rationed to a certain number of litres per month. The comune agrees a price for water with ACEA (Azienda Comunale Energia e Ambiente); this can vary with rainfall, the size of reserves and how much water you use. You should have a water meter (contatore) but again this may be shared with the other apartments if you live in an apartment block. Supply can cost as much as €75 per month for a family home. Should you live in a rural area in the south, you must have a storage tank which you can top up when the water supply is on or which can be filled by tanker, a pricey process.

Italy real estate — water shortages & swimming pools

With water shortages, high prices and rationing, it can seem a problem to get enough to water the garden, let alone fill the swimming pool in your Italian villa. However, think laterally and cut down on the waste. You can recycle the water you used for bathing by draining it into a separate tank (serbatoio) rather than swilling it down the drain. You can install a water purifier (dupuratore) a large, underground tank which cleans the water from the septic tank, making it fit for watering the garden, lawns or trees. It will cost you around €10,000 but long term can be a good investment.

If your area is short of water, the comune probably won’t let you put a swimming pool in. Is that a disaster? Consider that swimming pools cost a lot to dig and build and a small fortune to maintain. You’re going to have to employ somebody to clean it and it’s going to drink thousands of gallons of your metered water. (They can even be considered a negative selling point when it comes to putting your house on the market later on). But hey, you’re building your dream home in the sun and you want a pool — and if you’re going to be renting your property out during the summer months then it’s a big sell.

Italy real estate — your swimming pool

You can avoid planning permission by installing one of the prefabricated pools that sit at ground level. Of course you’ll still have to fill it with expensive water and they don’t look very nice, but they’re cheap to install and could be very welcome on hot summer days. Otherwise, find out the likelihood of gaining planning permission before you buy your house.

Perhaps the property you’re buying has its own well (pozzo), a useful source of scarce water. A few provisos though. First check that if it’s a part of the sale that it is drawing water and isn’t liable to dry up. Water tables rise and fall and a full well this year may be dry for four years in five. Check that you have rights to the water from the well — the fact that it is on your land doesn’t necessarily confer sole ownership with others possibly having historic rights to draw water. Check that the water source that feeds the well can’t be blocked or diverted by your neighbours (difficult to establish when you are drawing from the underground water table of course).

Italy real estate — is your well water acqua potabile?

Take a sample of the water from the well to the local water authority to check it’s safe to drink: sometimes water becomes excessively salty, but it may still be okay for watering the garden (as long as the saline content isn’t too high) or for filling the swimming pool. Water fit for drinking is called acqua potabile. You can even sink your own well if there is water on your land. Strange but true, a water diviner (radomante) will find the necessary spots and can even establish how deep the water lies.

Real estate in rural Italy — sewage & septic tanks

If you have bought real estate in rural Italy, it’s likely that drainage and disposal of sewage will be via a septic tank rather than the mains. This is less icky than it sounds … it’s not a cesspit (fossa biologica). Instead, a septic tank (fosso settica) is a filter, breaking your sewage down with bacteria before sluicing the fairly clean liquid away. Combine this with a purifier (see above) and you can use the resultant water for gardening.

Italy real estate — telephones

Oh dear, anyone who has enjoyed the benefits of deregulation of telecoms in the UK or the aggressively competitive market of the US is in for a bit of a shock. Before you Brits complain about BT, think back to what things were like in the old days of Post Office telephones, waiting months for a line to get connected and then paying a fortune for it. In fact don’t think back: just move to Italy and experience it all over again.

Though Telecom Italia lost its monopoly in 1998, it still owns the infrastructure, the cables and so forth. To get a new phone line installed you will need to apply at the local Telecom Italia office, presenting yourself along with your passport. You may find the wait and expense of being connected too painful and opt to use your mobile or cellphone, check that you get a usable reception where you are. While it may cost a fortune to run a line to a remote farmhouse in Puglia, the building may be impossible for mobile phone use.