The most common fear is signing something binding, in a language you do not read, before you know whether the seller even wants to sell. That is not how it works here.
English and Italian, side by side, on the same page.
Step one — the offer. You put in writing the price you are offering and the conditions attached to it. The document is prepared in English and Italian together, so you are reading the same terms the owner is reading. You sign it. You transfer nothing. Italian buyers usually attach a cheque at this stage; you will not have an Italian bank account yet, and you do not need one to make an offer. Nothing leaves your account.
Step two — we take it to the owner. In person. If he says no, the matter ends there and you have paid nothing and lost nothing. If he wants to negotiate, we come back to you and you decide.
Step three — the owner accepts and signs. His signature goes on the same document as yours.
Step four — you see the acceptance and sign again. We bring it back to you, you read that the owner has accepted, and you countersign. This second signature exists precisely so that nothing is concluded behind your back: you know, in writing, that the deal is done before you are committed to paying anything.
Step five — the transfer, within 24 hours. Now the agreed deposit is paid by bank transfer, from your own bank abroad. From this moment the agreement binds both sides — and that protection runs in your favour too. If the owner changes his mind afterwards, the law is on your side, not his.
And that document is already the preliminary contract. There is no second meeting to organise from another country, no separate signing to fly back for. Price, terms and deadlines are fixed in the paper you have already signed twice.
What happens next. The property is checked — ownership, plans, anything registered against it — and then you sign the deed in front of the notary and pay the balance. Between those two moments you have time to set up the codice fiscale and the Italian bank account, which we do with you, in person.
The short version. You never pay before the seller has committed. You never sign a page that exists only in Italian. And you never discover afterwards that something was agreed while you were on a plane.
