A tedious battle with the Italian red tape

Jan doesn't start work until July 1st, so we have two weeks to get settled in, take care of the necessary paperwork and try and find a more permanent house to live in.  

The lawyer who set up our rental agreement has filed it for registration yesterday, which means we are now officially renting a property in Ostuni, Italy.  There was a slight delay in the registration of the rental contract thanks to UPS.  It cost me $130 to get the signed contract sent from Alabama to Italy and instead of arriving within 5 days as it was supposed to, it was on the road for 3 weeks and when it finally arrived, it was drenched in ...  Olive oil - of course ! It's Italy !!  It's surprising they didn't include the mozzarella in the delivery. 

Anyways, with this contract and proof of registration in hand we will try and file for residency.  We have heard horror stories about the Italian bureaucracy and fear it might not be an easy task.
Our relocation agent Dino was supposed to arrange all these practicalities, but we decided we were not going to leave ourselves in his incapable hands and bite this bullet ourselves.  Our first attempt at the commune was over before it started.  We missed a document that needed to be fetched in a different part of town and by the time we could make it back the commune would without doubt be closed.  We fetched the missing document - not an easy task either because the rental contract and the registration form both stated a different geographical location of our rental property.  After that we called it a day and headed for the beach.

The  next morning we headed back to the commune proudly presenting the document we obtained the day before, but again our meeting with the angry commune lady was over before it started.  This time around however, she presented us with a piece of paper that listed all necessary documents to obtain residency.  Jackpot.  At least now we got the rule-book for this game!  We had a couple of catch 22 issues to overcome, but finally we got everything set up and we were able to file a request for residency.  After this the local vigile (police officer) needs to come around to officially establish residency - he has 45 days to do this.  Seeing as we got everything covered on July 29, residency should be established by August 15th.  There is only one slight hitch in this whole story.  Jan starts work next Monday, but I cannot register a car without residence....  Let's hope it doesn't take the full 45 days.


The commune building of Ostuni


The famous residency woman sitting angrily in front of her computer.  I'm convinced that frowning, yelling and giving people an extremely hard time are bullet points in her job description.

Recovering from our morning hassles with angry lady with a drink by the beach


Beautiful strip of white sandy beach and not a tourist in sight.




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