Lake Como Purchase: The Foreign Buyer's Sequence

Revision note, 13 October 2026#

This article was corrected on 13 October 2026. It said that from 1 January 2025 the registration tax on caparra is 0.5%. The Agenzia delle Entrate guide of October 2025 sets 0.5% on caparra and on price advances not subject to VAT for preliminary contracts signed from 1 January 2025, or the tax due on the final contract if that is lower; caparra was already taxed at 0.5% before, advances at 3%. The text, the table and a key takeaway now follow the guide.

Can foreigners buy on Lake Como, Italy?#

Yes, a foreign principal can buy a house on Lake Como, Italy, and for most buyers the sequence is the same once nationality is cleared. The lake sits in northern Italy, mostly in Lombardy, and the transaction runs under Italian civil, tax and planning law. Search engines also return Lake Como, a borough in New Jersey. Nothing in this note concerns it.

The sequence has seven steps, and the order matters. Nationality check, tax code, proposal, preliminary contract with deposit, planning and cadastral verification, the notarial deed, and registration. The table below sets the steps against who performs each, what the law charges and where the figure was read, with the optional transcription and the two deed routes on separate rows and the planning check left to its own section. Every rate comes from one source, the Agenzia delle Entrate guide dated October 2025.

The common error is to treat the deed as the start. By the time the notary sits down, price, deposit and conditions are already fixed in the preliminary. A principal who has not checked the building file before the preliminary has already spent the leverage.

This note describes process. It is not tax advice and not a recommendation to buy. It does not restate the Italian regime for new residents. It quotes no price and no value for any property, and it treats every rate as a reading taken on 1 October 2026 from a public document that can change.

Three questions organise the rest of the note. Can the principal buy at all. What does the notary actually do. What does the state charge on a second home. Each is answered from a primary document, and where a point rests on commentary rather than text, the note says so.

What does the reciprocity condition in Article 16 mean for a non-EU principal?#

*Reciprocity (condizione di reciprocità) is the rule that a foreigner enjoys Italian civil rights only if the home country grants the same rights to Italians. Article 16 of the preleggi*, the preliminary provisions to the Civil Code, admits the foreigner to the civil rights of the citizen on condition of reciprocity and subject to special laws. The same provision applies to foreign legal entities.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs places EU and EEA citizens outside the check. Its reciprocity page, read on 1 October 2026, names EU/EEA nationals and certain residence-permit holders among those who need no verification. It also states that for nationals of countries with a bilateral investment treaty with Italy the verification should not be carried out, because the treaty operates as special law.

For everyone else the check is country by country, and the Ministry says its country notes have no legal value. The page carries that disclaimer and describes its indications as general. The binding answer therefore arrives at the notary, not on the Ministry's page. The Consiglio Nazionale del Notariato has published a study on reciprocity in notarial practice, Studio n. 8-2020/A, cited here for its existence only and not summarised.

A non-EU principal should ask the notary about reciprocity before signing a proposal, not after. A negative answer on the country makes the whole sequence moot, and a deposit already paid would then be a dispute rather than a formality. This note lists no countries. A list would be a snapshot of a bilateral position that moves, and the Ministry itself declines to give such notes legal value.

Residence changes the analysis, and this note does not resolve it. The Ministry page lists residence-permit holders among the exempt groups, but the permit types and conditions sit in Legislative Decree 286/1998 and Presidential Decree 394/1999. A principal on a permit should have those texts read by counsel.

Why does a foreign buyer need a codice fiscale before anything else?#

*The codice fiscale is the Italian tax identification code, and in practice the notary requires one for every buyer.* It is therefore the first document to obtain. The Agenzia delle Entrate page on the code says that a first code for a foreign citizen, EU or non-EU, issued in Italy requires an in-person appointment. It also says that citizens resident abroad can request the code from the Italian diplomatic or consular representation in the country of residence.

The request runs on form AA4/8. The same page describes the form, completed and signed, being sent by certified email, with a valid identity document attached unless a digital signature is used. The page states no processing time, and this note does not invent one. A principal living abroad should open the consular route before the first viewing, not after the proposal.

Payment is the second operational step, and it must be traceable. Notarial guidance, including the Notariato's anti-money-laundering material and a Fondazione Italiana del Notariato note on payment methods, describes an obligation to declare the payment methods of the price analytically in the deed. Bank transfer and cheque are the instruments described, and the Fondazione note places the declaration duty on the parties. The principal should expect to document the source of funds.

An Italian bank account is a convenience in this sequence, not a step the sources require. This note found no statutory requirement for one in the documents read. Running utilities and local taxes through an Italian account is a practical choice that the principal's adviser should confirm.

A principal who cannot attend can in principle be represented. The form of a power of attorney signed abroad is a notary question that this note does not answer. It should be settled before the deed date is fixed.

How do the proposal, the preliminary and the caparra work on Lake Como?#

The purchase proposal is the buyer's written offer, and once signed it binds the buyer. Italian notarial guidance describes it as the written declaration of intent to buy at a stated price. The Agenzia delle Entrate guide adds that a bare proposal is not subject to registration, while the acceptance of a proposal is registrable where its clauses are enough in themselves to conclude a preliminary.

*The preliminary contract (compromesso) is an agreement to conclude a later deed, and it transfers no title.* The guide says ownership passes only with the signature of the final deed. The preliminary must be in writing, as private deed, authenticated private deed or public deed, and registered within 30 days. The guide gives €200 registration tax, plus stamp duty of €16 per four pages or 100 lines, rising to €155 for a notarial or authenticated form.

Caparra confirmatoria is earnest money with a penalty built into both sides.** Article 1385 of the Civil Code provides that the sum is returned or credited at performance. If the giver defaults, the other party may withdraw and keep it. If the receiver defaults, the other may withdraw and demand double. For preliminary contracts signed from 1 January 2025, the guide puts registration tax on caparra and on price advances not subject to VAT at 0.5% of those sums, or at the tax applicable to the final contract if that is lower, credited against the tax due on the final deed. Before 2025 caparra was already taxed at 0.5% and advances at 3%.

Transcribing the preliminary in the land registers is the protection a foreign buyer should price in. The guide explains that a registered preliminary alone leaves the seller free to sell the asset again or to burden it, with the buyer left to claim damages. Transcription needs a notary and adds €200 mortgage tax and €35 in mortgage fees to the €155 stamp duty. Whether to pay for it is a judgment for the principal and counsel.

What does the notary do at the Lake Como deed?#

The Italian notary is a public official who guarantees the legality of the deed, and is not the buyer's adviser. Notarial sources describe the function as verifying identities, checking the deed against Italian law, drafting it, registering it and collecting taxes for the state. A principal who assumes the notary acts for them has misread the role. The principal needs their own lawyer or technician.

The notary does verify title and encumbrances. The Agenzia delle Entrate guide says the notary carries out important checks on the cadastral and mortgage position of the property. It explains that the mortgage inspection reveals the owner and any mortgages or pending actions, judicial ones included. The notary then handles registration with the Revenue Agency and transcription in the land registers.

The notary collects the taxes and pays them over. The guide states that registration, mortgage and cadastral taxes are paid by the notary at registration of the deed. The principal funds them alongside the price. The notary's professional fee is not set out in the guide, which notes only that the price-value system carries a statutory reduction in notarial fees. The principal should ask for a written fee estimate before the preliminary.

The notary also applies the payment and anti-money-laundering rules. The parties are identified, and the parties themselves declare the payment methods of the price analytically in the deed, in the substitute declaration the guide describes. The Fondazione Italiana del Notariato note places that duty on the parties and says the notary is not to investigate to reconstruct missing data, which is why the traceability of funds is a precondition rather than a courtesy.

The notary does not carry out private due diligence on planning history. Practitioner guidance for foreign buyers, from a practising notary, says the notary does not control urban-planning and cadastral history beyond what the law strictly requires. That gap is the subject of the planning section below, and it is directional guidance rather than statute.

What taxes apply to a second home on Lake Como?#

A second home generally falls outside the first-home relief, so the principal pays the ordinary rates. The prima casa relief carries residence and ownership conditions that the guide sets out in its own chapter, and a principal should have those tested rather than assumed. The guide's chapter on ordinary rates applies where no relief is claimed. The rates then depend on the seller.

Under the private route three taxes apply. Registration tax at 9% with a €1,000 minimum, mortgage tax of €50 fixed, and cadastral tax of €50 fixed. The notary pays them at registration. The guide notes that the proportional tax cannot fall below €1,000, and that the amount actually due may be lower because of the tax already paid on the caparra at the preliminary.

Prezzo-valore is the system under which tax is computed on cadastral value, not on the price.** It applies where the buyer is a private individual, the dwelling is residential and the buyer asks the notary for it at the deed. For homes without first-home relief the cadastral value is cadastral income, revalued by 5%, multiplied by 120. The parties must still state the real price in the deed.

The guide's own worked example shows the size of the effect. A cadastral income of €900 gives a taxable base of €113,400 and registration tax of €10,206, against €18,000 if the tax were computed on a €200,000 price. These are the guide's illustrative figures, not a statement about any property on the lake. Concealing part of the price removes the benefit and brings a penalty of 50% to 100% of the difference.

Cadastral income on a lakefront villa is a file-specific number, and the principal has to obtain it. The guide notes that consulting cadastral and mortgage data is free only for title holders. A prospective buyer should expect to pay for the searches, or to have the notary or a technician pull them, before relying on any estimate of the deed tax.

Buying from a company or a private seller on Lake Como, what changes?#

A private seller triggers registration tax, and a company seller usually does too, unless VAT applies in defined cases. The guide's general rule is that sales of residential buildings by companies are exempt from VAT. In that case the buyer pays the same 9% registration tax, €50 mortgage tax and €50 cadastral tax as in a private sale.

VAT applies when a construction or restoration company sells within five years of completion, or later if the seller opts for it. The guide adds the case of social housing where the seller opts. The option must be expressed in the deed or in the preliminary. A new-build or fully restored villa on the lake is the type of asset most likely to follow this route, which is directional, and the point should be confirmed in the preliminary rather than assumed.

When VAT applies, the rate is 10% or 22% on the price, plus three fixed taxes of €200. The guide sets 22% for dwellings in cadastral categories A/1, A/8 and A/9, and 10% for the other residential categories where first-home relief is unavailable. The guide describes A/8 as abitazioni in ville and A/7 as abitazioni in villini, so the category of a lake villa must be checked on the visura. The base is the price actually charged, not the cadastral value.

The two routes are not comparable without the price and the cadastral category. VAT bites on the price, while registration tax can bite on cadastral value. A principal comparing two houses should compute both on the real file. This note runs the arithmetic for no specific property. It also records the guide's warning that a private buyer is jointly liable with the seller for VAT on any undeclared difference between the real and the stated price, with a 60-day window to regularise.

Deposits are treated differently when VAT applies. An advance on price is invoiced with VAT and carries €200 registration tax for the advance and €200 for the preliminary. A caparra confirmatoria sits outside VAT and is taxed at the proportional rate, credited to the final deed, with €200 on the preliminary. The clause chosen in the preliminary therefore changes the tax file.

What must be checked on planning and cadastre before signing on Lake Como?#

Two separate declarations protect two separate registers, and a deed needs both. The cadastre records what the building is on paper. The planning file records what the building was permitted to be. Italian law attaches nullity to the absence of each declaration in the deed, and the two are routinely confused.

Cadastral conformity is a statement by the registered owners that the cadastral data and plans match the state of the property. Article 29, paragraph 1-bis, of Law 52/1985 requires cadastral identification, a reference to the plans and that declaration, on pain of nullity, in transfers of existing urban buildings. Notarial commentary adds that the notary must identify the registered owners and check them against the registers.

Planning regularity enters the deed as a declaration of the permit details. For buildings whose construction began after 17 March 1985, commentary on the consolidated building law, Presidential Decree 380/2001, reports that the transfer is null unless the seller declares the building permit or amnesty details. Legal commentary on the 2019 ruling of the Sezioni Unite describes this as textual nullity. The declaration must be present and refer to a real title, and it need not prove that the works conform.

The consequence is a gap that only the principal can close. A deed can be valid even where the building departs from its permit, and the declaration check does not measure the departure. An independent technician should compare the permit, the cadastral plan and the building as built before the caparra is paid, because that is the last point at which walking away is cheap.

The working file is short. Title deed and chain of title, permit and any amnesty documents, certificates for habitability and plant, cadastral visura and plan, mortgage inspection. This is an underwriting checklist assembled by Victaura Research, not a statutory list. Timelines for new works are set out in the permit calendar, day by day.

How does the landscape layer on Lake Como change the sequence?#

The lake shore is a landscape-protected zone by law. Article 142 of the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code, Legislative Decree 42/2004, places the territories adjacent to lakes, within a band 300 metres deep from the shoreline, under landscape protection. For a principal looking at a house near the water the protection is presumptive. The wider subject is covered in the landscape constraint on Lake Como.

Landscape authorization is required before works, and it is valid for five years. Article 146 obliges owners to submit the project and to refrain from starting works until authorized. It sets 45 days for the Soprintendenza opinion and 20 days for the authority to decide once the opinion arrives. The authorization is effective for five years, after which the works need a new one, although works begun within the five years may be completed within the following year. The term runs from the date the required building permit becomes effective, unless the delay is due to the applicant.

For a buyer, an existing authorization is an asset only while it is alive. An authorization issued years ago for works not yet carried out may have lapsed. The principal should check when the five-year term started, which the statute ties to the effectiveness of any building permit, and check that any works already done match what was authorized.

Which body issues the authorization is a local question, and the principal should ask the comune. The Province of Como publishes a landscape authorization page for the categories of works it handles. The municipal and regional pages cited in the references returned their portal home pages when read on 1 October 2026, so this note draws nothing from them. This note did not verify which body is competent for a given lake municipality. The public page for the Modern Villa on Lake Como is the Victaura project listing closest to this subject, and nothing here is specific to it.

Water frontage adds a separate legal layer that this sequence does not cover. Rights over the shoreline, a landing or a mooring are a distinct question from the house deed. They are examined in direct water access on Lake Como, and a principal should not assume they pass with the building.

Where this sequence is weak, honestly disclosed#

The tax figures are a reading of one document on one date. Rates come from the Agenzia delle Entrate guide dated October 2025, read on 1 October 2026. The guide itself records past changes, for example the preliminary regime that changed on 1 January 2025, so a later edition can differ. The figures are measured as to the text and directional as to the tax due on any real file.

Reciprocity is the least settled point, and this note does not settle it. The Ministry's pages say their country notes have no legal value. No country list is given here, and the principal should obtain a written answer from the notary before any money moves.

Several points rest on secondary commentary. The cadastral and planning nullity rules are cited through legal commentary, the notary-role points through notarial and practitioner guidance, and the landscape competence through a provincial page, while the municipal and regional pages cited did not open on the day of reading. Statutory text was read through legal-text republishers, not the official gazette. Counsel should read the statute itself.

This note omits several costs. Notary fees, agency commission, translation, the technician's fee, annual property taxes and the tax treatment of the principal in the home country are not covered, and no source for them was read. Succession rules for foreign owners are also outside scope.

Nothing here predicts timing or price. No timeline for the full sequence is stated, because none was sourced. The only dated periods are statutory ones, 30 days to register a preliminary, and 45 and 20 days in the landscape procedure.

Skin in the game disclosure. Victaura, through its parent Greystone B.V. (Netherlands), develops projects on Lake Como (Italy), in Nungwi, Zanzibar (Tanzania), on Gili Air and in Uluwatu, Bali (Indonesia), and holds an off-plan capital position on Al Marjan Island, Ras Al Khaimah (UAE). Readers should assume commentary may be influenced by, or benefit, these positions. This document is classified as marketing material under MiFID II Article 24(3). It is not investment advice.