Protected: Palazzo Viva Owners download

Increasing numbers of non-Italians are buying property in Puglia, either to live here full time or do the Schengen Shuffle. Foreign visitors to Puglia were up 20% in the first 8 months of 2024 over the same period in 2023. … Continue reading →

Properties around the 100,000-120,000 mark in Nardò and Galatina

Posted on September 10, 2024 by PersonalPuglia

Here is the promised round up of properties in Nardò and Galatina, some of which have been remodernised, most of which are habitable (but not necessarily rentable as this depends on when they were last rewired/replumbed). Most of these would come in under the 120,000 euro mark including work, some less. Continue reading →

Free webinars on buying and/or restoring property in Puglia

Posted on August 26, 2024 by PersonalPuglia

We will be running some free seminars – one on buying property in Puglia, one on restoring property and one on fractional ownership. Groups will be kept small so that everyone has a chance to ask questions, and you can … Continue reading →

Personal Puglia Property news and free seminars

Posted on August 26, 2024 by PersonalPuglia

It has to be said that I am not a fan of August in Italy. The beaches are too crowded, well everything is too crowded really, and one eats worse, even at favorite restaurants because the staff are run off their feet and exhausted. The worst thing for me is that nobody does any work, and everything grinds to a halt – which I find frustrating.

We had made a lot of progress with our Palazzo Viva project and our grant application was almost ready to go in after lots of delays caused by applications opening some 6 months later than promised, and all the rules changing in the meantime. We were pushing to get all the loose ends tied up when our accountant’s wife was rushed into hospital in mid-July. As he needed to do the final stages of our application, and we didn’t want to put pressure on at a difficult time, we had to resign ourselves to waiting for autumn, as his office is closed in August in any case. Meanwhile, our option on the Palazzo needed to be extended and the owners started trying to renegotiate the deal. Oh Joy! Continue reading →

Refurbish your home in Puglia without making costly mistakes or relying on trust

Posted on August 8, 2024 by PersonalPuglia

As mentioned in a previous post, this is an online course of 15 lessons designed of to equip you to feel confident in deciding what work your property needs, what it should cost, and what steps you need to take to confirm to local regulations.

New content will be uploaded at least once a fortnight – once the content for this one is finished I will run some more in depth courses about different aspects of the process.

After 15 years of restoring properties here I have seen it all and am happy to share my know how! Continue reading →

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Gut Feeling.”

I first came to Puglia, to Monopoli in fact, at the invitation of my mother, Diane Seed, who had taken a group to a five star hotel there for a ‘culinary adventure’. At the time I was organising specialist holidays in the UK for families. Getting talking to the owners, they suggested I organised some trips there. So I did – coming back a further three times and, each time, falling more in love with Puglia.

On my third trip, I went into Monopoli with my mother who was thinking of renting an apartment there, to use as an occasional escape from Rome. We were outside an estate agents, looking in the window, when a man approached us and asked if we were looking for an apartment to rent. We went with him, into the centro storico where he showed us an apartment; the top floor of a house with medieval origins. My mother was not impressed – too many stairs, small kitchen, no bathtub. I stood on the roof terrace looking at the view (cathedral, church spire, church spire, sea) and fell deeper still in love.

I wanted that apartment so much it hurt but, despite the fact that the rent seemed impossibly low by London standards, I couldn’t justify it. Why on earth would I need a, small, apartment in Puglia? The following night I had a dream where someone sat me down and told me I was going to die much earlier than I imagined. It was very vivid and waking up, still half asleep, I believed it absolutely. The first thing I did was work out how old my three children would be when it was supposed to happen, my second thought was ‘right, I am having that apartment’. It felt right so I did it.

During this period I had split up with my husband and was finding alternate custody of the children very difficult. There were super cheap flights to Puglia at the time so, in my child free weeks, I would hop on a plane and go to my apartment… exploring Puglia and extending the number of holidays I organised for other people. A few months later, when things back in London were getting increasingly difficult, my downstairs neighbours in Puglia told me they were moving out.

It was an absolute impulse – I told the owner that I wanted to rent the ground floor as well, packed up everything in England and moved over to Puglia with my two younger children. At the time I still didn’t really know anyone there so it was a bit scary, but I did it.

Across a narrow street from me there was an elderly lady who, unable to get about much any longer, sat all day in her doorway framed by the open top shutters of her door, above which there was an icon of the Madonna, surrounded by light bulbs. She befriended us, and her acceptance made it easier moving into, what was then, a fairly closed community.

Provider of much local knowledge, recipes and herbal remedies (as well as arcane rituals involving bowls of water and oil to cure all that ailed you) she told me repeatedly that I had come to the right place and the Madonna had sent me to Monopoli. A friend at the time commented rather waspishly that he was not sure what Monopoli had done to deserve this…

It hasn’t always been easy and, in my first year, I was taken royally to the cleaners and lost a lot of money, one of the reasons why I am very committed to making sure that other ‘foreigners’ who want to buy or do up properties here are looked after properly, as well as being guided through the endless red tape and illogical rules which make up the Italian system.

I still think occasionally of the old lady, Nina, and it makes me smile. While it is never flattering to be compared to a plague of locusts, or similar it did feel, and still does, like I came to the right place….

Continue reading →

Gut feeling – how I ended up in Puglia…..