André and Christoph, a curious and passionate couple from Germany, reached out to me with a clear vision: they wanted to find a home on the shores of Lake Garda.
The lake had long captured their hearts, but they needed someone to help them turn their dream into a structured, step-by-step plan.
This wasn’t just about scenery — they were looking for a place that truly reflected their lifestyle, where they could create memories, enjoy the Italian rhythm… and maybe even dock a boat, given their love for everything nautical.
Their Main Challenges:
- Exploring the areas that best aligned with their values, lifestyle, and investment potential.
- Understanding the Italian market, including bureaucracy, taxation, and legal processes.
- Making well-informed choices remotely, while still feeling involved and in control.
How I Supported Them
Initially, they reached out to have a second opinion on a property they had found on their own. We went through the details together — but after reflecting, they decided to explore other possibilities before making such a big commitment.
That’s when our real journey began. I curated a selection of new properties based on their wishes and needs, and we visited several together — both in person and virtually. When they couldn’t travel, I organized live video tours, followed by detailed video recaps and written reports, to make sure they felt fully present and empowered, even from afar.
They looked at other apartments. They compared, they reconsidered, they widened the search. And in the end, they came back to the very first one — the property they’d asked me about before we’d even properly started working together. It was the one all along. What followed, though, was not the confident, single-offer story most buyers hope for.
Five Offers, One Year, One Very Reluctant Seller
The apartment had urban and cadastral discrepancies — small on paper, large enough to make the seller hesitate every time we got close to signing. We presented five offers over the course of more than a year. Each one brought us closer. None of them, for a while, brought us to a signature.
Patience, in the end, did what pressure couldn’t. The seller signed.
The Sanatoria, the Antibagno, and the Agibilità That Arrived a Day Late
Signing the offer was the beginning, not the end, of the paperwork.
Regularizing the property meant six months working through the Sovraintendenza — the authority that oversees anything with heritage or landscape implications, and not an office known for moving quickly.
Then came the antibagno: a small anteroom required by regulation, which the seller was supposed to build within fifteen days of the deed and hadn’t. We stepped in with Giorgio and his team at Bonkasa to get it done ourselves, on a deadline that was, by then, not really a deadline anymore.
The agibilità — the certificate of habitability, without which there is no deed — was filed the day before signing. I won’t pretend I wasn’t nervous.
Deed Day
We signed with Notary Luca Caini, with an interpreter present and André and Christoph’s German witnesses in the room. After a year of offers, six months of sanatoria, and a certificate that arrived with hours to spare, it was, finally, the moment.
The seller had left the keys to the apartment in his car. We waited.
Fun Fact:
André is also a colleague of mine in Germany… but with a unique twist: he sells yachts too! When I learned about their shared passion for the nautical world, I arranged something special — a visit to the Bellini Nautical Museum in Corte Franca (BS). A true hidden gem, this museum hosts the most complete private collection of vintage Riva boats in the world, curated by Romano Bellini. For André and Christoph, it wasn’t just a museum visit — it was an emotional moment that connected their love for Italy with one of its most refined traditions.
The CIN — André’s Personal Nemesis
Even after the deed, one thing remained: the CIN, the national identification code required to legally rent the property short-term. It became, in André’s words, something close to an obsession. It took several trips to the Comune on my part before it was finally within reach — the CIN could only be requested once agibilità and conformità were both fully in place, which meant waiting for the paperwork to catch up with reality one last time.
It did. The apartment is now Lago-Loft — lago-loft.it.
More Than a Purchase
Working with André and Christoph wasn’t just about finding a house. It was a collaboration built on trust, discovery, and more patience than any of us expected to need going in.
Gallery
