The Montalcino House
Surprises at the final walkthrough + the wildest closing ever.
If you are just tuning in, you can read past newsletters to learn how we found the Montalcino house, how we got it under contract, and our renovation planning efforts from afar.
When we arrived in Rome on February 2, we still didn’t have a closing date for the Montalcino house.
Our agent, Mauro, explained there was one final issue with the title history to resolve. The home had been in the seller’s family for several generations. Fabio, the current owner of the home, was an only child to Annunziata and Armando. Armando passed away in 1981. In 1991, Annunziata transferred the title of the property to her son, Fabio, through an Atto di Donazione, or a gift deed, a common procedure by which property is passed down to heirs. Annunziata continued to live in the house, however, until she passed away on March 24, 2014.
Under Italian law, l'atto di donazione è impugnabile - a gift deed can be legally challenged - under certain circumstances for up to 10 years following the donor's death. We were about 6 weeks shy of that 10-year mark.
Therefore, in theory, a secret child born out of wedlock to either Annunziata or Armando could come forward in the next six weeks and claim an ownership stake in the home.
It was an improbable scenario. The hypothetical love child would be over eighty years old! But, we either needed to delay closing until after the 10-year mark from Annunziata’s passing or address it in the deed. No one wanted to delay closing, so we agreed to do whatever legal acrobatics were necessary to address the matter.
While we waited, Mauro suggested that we arrange a visione dell'immobile, a final walkthrough of the property before closing. We were more than happy to go to Montalcino for a few days. We reached out to Elena, Fabio’s daughter and our point of contact, and agreed to meet her at the home on Friday afternoon.
Since the Thursday prior was Fat Thursday, we decided to make a trip of it, stopping first in Viareggio to celebrate Carnevale, and then on to Montalcino. We pulled into town right on time, found parking, and headed on foot to the house. When we arrived, the front door was ajar. We knocked and called out, “Buongiorno!”
What we saw when Elena and her husband, Marco, opened the door gave us pause…
