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Good progress

The illegal building

By way of a bit of background, what you  see in this photograph used to be a stand-alone bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.

Buying a property in Italy is rarely simple and when we had arrived at the point where we wanted to make an offer, our geometra looked into the property in more depth and discovered that the building had been illegally erected some years ago. Hence, we would be advised not to purchase the property unless the vendor dropped the price and demolished the extra building.

The illegal building
The beginnings of something special

The vendor, therefore, duly did the minimum required to make the site legal again by removing the roof to make it inhabitable. He also did us a favour by not demolishing the walls and leaving in place the basic fixtures and fittings.

What you see here is the beginning of the process of turning the building into an external kitchen and dining area complete with barbecue, fridge and bathroom.  From now on known by the builders as ‘the illegal building’ or ‘l’edificio illegale’. It will have a bamboo roof (which is allowed) for shade and shelter from the Puglian sunshine.  It will also be entirely re-plastered and re-clad in matching, sympathetic stone to create something really special from what might at first have been a bit of a white elephant.

We are really pleased with this development and feel it will add enormously to the enjoyment of our future guests. They will able to take full advantage of the warm climate by being able to enjoy cooking and eating in the open air in an area that has it’s own facilities but is very adjacent also to the main house and swimming pool. 

Watch this space.

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Puglian Earth

Puglia extension foundations

On arriving at the trullo for an extended stay on 26th September,  I was greeted by a deep red hole in the ground next to the house. Excavation on the new extension had finally begun but there was still something missing.

We had agreed that for logistical reasons, and to save time, we would excavate the swimming pool at the same time. However, on close inspection, this was going to be either the shallowest pool of all time or clearly that had not happened. There must surely be a good explanation.

Definitely no sign of a swimming pool there!

Our swimming pool building project is being handled by Puglia Pools in Locorotondo. I called them to discuss this matter only to be told that we were all ready to begin excavation when our geometra discovered that our permit from Martina Franca Commune was in fact invalid.

Now, those of you familiar with buying property in Italy will be fully aware of this. For those who aren’t,  a brief summary of how it works. When you make an offer on a property, you do it in writing. Alongside that offer are all the conditions of sale that you wish to see met before you agree to complete. One of those conditions in our case was that a valid permit to build a swimming pool was approved on the site. What we recently found out was that, for reasons we can’t discuss here right now, the permit was deemed invalid. We may have to take this issue further but hopefully not as a new permit is likely to be issued in January.

This puts us three months behind schedule for pool building.  However, this should still give us plenty of time to complete the job in time for the summer. In the meantime work continues on the other building work in earnest. I’m looking forward to seeing it progress. More to follow.