clombardelli's activity

In the Daily Mail today there is an article that relates to US Tax Officials chasing up US citizens who live in the UK on payment of taxes to the US.  Part of the article relates to Boris Johnson who has British parents but was born in the US and returned to the UK when he was 5.  He has dual nationality.  Apparently when selling his UK house a couple of years ago he had to pay tax (I assume the equivalent of capital gains tax) to the US - reportedly in the region of £100k on the profit he made from this asset, even though he has never worked in the US and lived back in the UK since 5 years old.Personally I can see that if we come out of the EU then UK citizens who own/live abroad and have probably got residency but maintain a UK house - that those government tax departments will come after them for every penny they can get.

We bought in Marche 12 years ago and have no regrets.  The region is stunning.  You are close enough to the airport at Ancona with daily flights from the UK.  We live near Tolentino, and that works out great - in beautiful countryside with amazing views, no more than 40 mins to the beach and the same to the mountains. Advice I would give - be brave if you want to take on a renovation - it always costs lots more than you think.  We bought a renovated house and then just improved it.  Be careful of houses down 'white roads'., i.e. with no tarmac - as you can be responsible for the maintenance and they can sometimes be impassable after heavy rains. Buy close to a substantial town - say no more than 10 minutes drive - it is good to be able to go food shopping and have a choice of restaurants/bars close by. We only live in our house for the 6 summer months - not a lot happens in Le Marche during the winter - and it gets wet and cold.  Let me know if you want more ......

I had this issue when I wanted to buy some land from a local farmer, and someone directed me to this website :http://wwwt.agenziaentrate.gov.it/mt/Osservatorio%20immobiliare/valori_agricoli_medi/marche/AN%202013.pdf. This page is just for my area, but the website enables you to put in the region you are looking for and then within the document gives you the actual towns. This gives you the guideline for prices depending on what is growing on the land.

I use Uk broker David Roberts and Partners, based in Southport, 01704 508400 and have done for the last 10 years. Comprehensive building (including earthquake) and contents insurance, policy in English with a company called Andrew Copeland International Ltd. I know that I have read on this site that other Italian owners use this company. My policy is for a private house, i.e. no rentals

I make my own bread all the time, but don't normally use just spelt.  However I found a good recipe for you and I have tried it out. Recipe is from Giorgio Locatelli - Made in Italy Food and Stories.Makes 1 loaf.5g fresh yeast, 740 g water at room temperature (I know this sounds like a lot of water but you use half of it to cook the spelt). 120 g Farro/spelt, 250g farro/spelt flour, 1 Teaspoon of salt.Soak farro in water to cover for 10 - 15 mins, then drain, put in pan with half of water in recipe and bring to boil, and simmer until all water has virtually gone, bit like risotto.Using other half of water disolve yeast.While farro is hot transfer into a bowl and add flour and salt, and then gradually work in yeast/water mix.  The dough is very sloppy. Put into 500g bread tin and leave for 1.5 hours. Should double in size,Heat your oven to the hottest 250C and bake for 40 mins. Leave oven door open very slightly for last 10 mins to crisp bread.I made this bread yesterday - tried it warm when it came out of the oven , and then again for breakfast this morning - with marmite !.  It is delicious and a bit like german pumpernickel.

We had a problem about 4 years ago. Our house is on the side of a hill - on a piece of flat land, but the edge of the land kept eroding and falling into the valley.  This caused the swimming pool to move and tilt. We got a local builder (details in a minute) to build us a 40M long 3M high wall made up of gabbione cages which were supplied by him - cost E30 each for the cages, which were 1M x 1M x 2M (although you can buy them smaller) You can have them filled with whatever - concrete blocks are the cheapest I think, but we decided we wanted it to look better than this so we had them filled with local stone. They are  set on top of each other on a staggered basis and we have not had a problem since. The guy who did the whole job and supplies the materials is Luciano Calvani - you will find him with a big builders yard on the outskirts of Sarnarno.

We have a 1000 lt tank buried in the garden and use Golden Gas. We only use our house for 6 months in the summer - so very little central heating - and we normally can get away with around 400 - 500 ltrs of gas - at around E1 per litre for the summer months. During the time we have had the house, Golden Gas have replaced free of charge the valves at the top of the tank.  However, I am sure that I have read on this site somewhere that there are new safety regulations related to tanks buried in the garden - covering things such as how long can you leave them in the ground before replacing, fencing around them, and safety signs warning of gas.

Interested in knowing where the route goes north of San Ginesio.

I have three phase. My last bill from Prometeo (based in Ancona) for the period May-June 2012 (but billed in September) was E339.45 - the house was occupied 100% of the time. We have gas central heating and a gas hob (but electric cooker) - the swimming pool was not open.  The cost of 'servizi di vendita' was E100.41. the cost of 'servizi di rete' was E174.12 , Imposte erariale (whatever this is) was E24.06 and IVA of 10% E30.86.This is based on consumption of 466KW for May, and 594 Kw for June. A prior bill from 2006 (before 3 phase was installed) May and June usage was 501Kw and the cost of the KW was E88.52 and the line E30.72.  So my advice is be sure that you want to pay for the ccnvenience of having all of your electricial appliances working at the same time as the fixed costs go up substantially with 3 phase.

We installed 3 phase 15 kw a couple of years back. Firstly you cannot run this on overhead cable , there needs to be a new cable from the electricity pole to the house buried in the ground. This stretch of cable is your responsibility, not that of the energy company. The energy company will take responsibility for connecting their end to the pole, but the trench, the cable and the connection to the fuse box is at your cost. The cable is expensive and it cost us E100 per metre (in total E1000 for the 100m stretch from the pole).  We then had to divide the fuse box into three.  How we did this was to put the pool, garage lighting and all external lighting on one set of fuses, the oven ( a monster range that takes 5kw when using both ovens) on a separate cable which we had to run  a new one from the fuse box to the oven, and then the rest of the household appliances, lighting and switches on the third.  We have never had a problem since.  However, be aware that the standing charge from the energy company to have this amount of available kw to your house is high, even though your actual electricity consumption might be moderate.