Selling our much loved Tuscan house and struggling with the decision

[Northbynorthbreast]

Ten years ago we fell in love with an italian house. Impulsively we bought it. We were so lucky to find an amazing team to help us renovate it. It’s 16th century , river facing in a beautiful small Tuscan town. We thought we couldn’t have kids so this was our project, move to Italy for an adventure.

the house has been a wonderful sanctuary, calm and so beautiful with loads of magic old features. We she been lucky. It to have any major issues and to have had friends to help us check on it when we weren’t there.

but now it’s time to let it go.

we were lucky to have a child and the town is nice but not duels for him and it’s a loooong drive that was fun as a couple but an ordeal with a sen kid.

we move don the uk and now live somewhere whee summer is super fun and so we are reluctant to travel from here.

climate change is bringing so we crème temps.

we just don’t use it as much as we need to. I tried sharing it with friends and home swapping, we did a little Airbnb but it was too stressful. I also had a very very big accident and it has had life changing consequences that make travelling anywhere harder.

So eventually, we out it up for sale. it sold to the second viewer. Now I’m broken hearted, or just nostalgic but anyway, conflicted. We sign the papers next week.

any advice for being heart sore? When it’s the right decision but it makes you super sad? It’s just such a unique and beautiful house with stone spiral staircases and vaulted ceilings. We feel it was such a privilege to have it and restore it and now w we need to pass it on.

I know this is first world problem. Please be kind.

There are a lot of typos so it's a little hard to follow your post.

It's understandable to be upset about something that has meant so much to you. Is there anything that would help you treasure the memories? Maybe a framed photo or painting of the house somewhere in your home?

Is there something else that could help replace the way you felt about the house - can you make new holiday memories somewhere else that works better for your new family situation? Even starting the research for something like that might be a helpful distraction.

What is there to say? Stop the sale right now before it is too late?

Do you have EU citizenship?

If there is no going back, then I am so sorry for your bereavement. Try to remember all your special times there. Maybe write them down. Create a photo album.

It certainly is a loss even if you see no other way.

Hi. You're post doesn't mention not being able to afford the property so I presume the money isn't an issue.

It sounds amazing and hearing how sad you are makes me wonder why you can't keep it?
Let friends and family use it.

Maybe rent it out and employ someone to manage that in Italy if you need to.

Maybe at some point in the future you will be able to travel abroad and you can enjoy it again.

• I sold a house once that I really didn't want to. I have regretted it for 15 years.

X

I know two people who have done this and in the end they were just happy to have found others who would treasure the property

My sister on the other hand sold a historic property in the "wrong" place which had been a much loved family home for five of them and it was gutted and rebuilt in a hideous new version undoing all her improvements and THAT was very difficult to get over

So you can't control what the next person will do.

But your life is your new child and new area so I think you will adapt quickly. My sister absolutely loves her new house as well as regretting the sale 10 years ago of old house, it is possible to have contradictory feelings at once

The other two people with happy handovers (in Italy) just adore looking at old photos remmbering all the details but they don't need to actually have or own or visit the house to enjoy these memories, and of course they get updates from current owners too.

@Shelleyblueeyes we have tried to enrol people to visit and they have, here and there but it’s not really enough to justify it. It’s also slightly the right house in the wrong area.

I can empathize, I had to let go of my beautiful house, our literal magazine cover project.

This was due to divorce, it was brutal, for me and the kids and I still avoid walking past it. thinking about my garden still hurts a lot.
I have accepted that losing it represents everything that I lost in the dumpster fire that was the end of my marriage. I feel OK just saying I mourn the loss of it. It’s OK to mourn and grieve. Grieving takes time.
I’m still very glad we actually built the house, the process of it was something I really enjoyed. I’m proud of what we achieved- I grieve the loss of it, and all that that represents.

@Nettleskeins this is good to hear. The buyer adores it and it’s being sold with all our stuff so she inherits our style which she was super enamoured by… so no reason to change much. It’s listed and in centro storico so it’s quite limited what you can do to mess it up. I think they’ll keep in touch with us.

@ScrollingLeaves we have residence but not citizenship so there are tax and logistic issues that seem to be getting worse. Husband weary of the bureaucracy. I am a bit tired of housekeepers/turnovers/emails/keys/ it’s a fair bit to manage at a distance and we are lucky there haven’t been any major works needed or anything dramatic but it could happened when you say pull the sale I see that I don’t want to do that. We can better deploy the funds elsewhere/ it has been a joy for a decade but it will be nice to explore other areas of the world without guilt.

@ThePM im sorry for what you went through. It must be very tough when it’s enforced.

we also did a lot from scratch, bringing vintage sanitary ware over in our van from the UK’s and rummaging flea markets for gems x it’s a real labour of love and so now I’m thinking am I mad to voluntarily let this gov but I just cannot see us using it more than we do now and I can’t take on the project of remote vacation rentals and Italian taxes when my body is as broken as it is and we are home schooling, elderly mum etc so in a way it does feel forced by circumstance and energy levels.

we have t signed yet- I am going over to take a last look before we commit and then we have 8 weeks to be there before it’s gone for good

Sorry for typos - fat thumbs and tired.

What a lucky house to have had such careful custodians. You have become a part of its history and helped to ensure its future by restoring it so lovingly. Can you leave a more permanent memento so that you are always part of its history? For example, in our current house we uncovered the name of previous occupants written in the brickwork cement, and in a little casement window, two previous children have scratched their names (really tiny!) I like to think of all the people who have lived in my house (it's really old!) and feel grateful that they looked after it so well and want to be remembered in it.

I fall in love with houses and it’s very hard to leave them. Leaving the house I grew up in when my dad underwrote a fraudulent business with it was heartbreaking. Moving out of the house I bought with my first husband was absolutely terrible, though with hindsight I had no taste at all! The house I live in now we bought from an interior designer who did it up on a shoestring - perfect combo imo. I hope I never have to leave. So I do see why it’s upsetting.

Is there potential for a new project closer to home? A beach hut, or a garden office?

Without being too outing we did something very similar and during the sale process felt exactly the same. Also a centro storico property. It had stunning frescos and everything was on a massive scale so all the furniture had to be huge to match. But my god the battles and the bureaucracy. Even the bloody bin liners had to be procured from a special counter in the town square that was literally open one morning a month and overseen by a foul tempered public servant. If she didn’t feel like opening, she didn’t. And then you couldn’t put your rubbish out 😵‍💫 for another few weeks unless you begged and borrowed some bags from neighbours etc. It was crazy.

as for renting and Airbnb - we got legged over by the cleaner who had an eye to the main chance and began to charge ever more ridiculous sums to iron a single sheet. Far more than we could ever pass on to people renting the property. We couldn’t put anything against tax - either cleaning or rent. People would come and turn the heating up to the max as soon as they came thru the door but we wouldn’t get the ugly shock of the energybill until a few weeks later. Then we would realise it was about three times what we had taken in rent. And so on. We were actually making a loss on renting it out. Family came but they too wanted to explore other places. By that time we had paid a manager locally and the cleaning and utilities cost it was just haemorrhaging money.

in the end, it was such a headache. The keys, the cleaning, the stress. We loved going but we also wanted to go elsewhere. We realised we loved the principle of having it- the ‘essence’ of the project and all the love and care we had poured in - more than the day to day of it.

and actually once we handed the keys over the relief was amazing. We look back with such love and fondness but also find that we can now look out and beyond to make so many other new and different plans.

I think you will find the same.

Gosh thank you for these amazing responses. @friskybivalves this is exactly it- we have been so lucky with personnel but I just don’t want to go to next level of renting… we too are terrified of the gas bill! One week someone stayed and used the heating by mistake - as in turned a valve and it cost us £600!!!

I am taking a screen grab of your reply. Thank you so much. As you say it is the essence of the thing… the love we gave it and the pleasure of owning it. Like a classic car or a wonderful vintage dress, it’s the one offness of it that makes me sad.

@friskybivalves also the crazy crazy crazy commune!! And how you can’t pay bills by direct debit, no you have to sweat for half an hour to get a stamp on it from a surly post person.

@truepenguin that’s a nice idea… I might think what would work without vandalising it!
@PermanentTemporary i am the same very much in love with homes. We moved a lot when i was little and it feels like a real schism to choose this but i just know it is time to call time on it. If the owner tires of it ten years later… haha. Maybe we would buy it back!

I can empathise, I sold my house in Italy 2 years ago as part of a divorce, beautiful villa ... I lost all the contents too.
It's heartbreaking, but, If you create your next home filled with love and family, that's priceless. Tuscany will always be there.

I drove past my old italian house on a recent trip back there and was at peace.
It's taken a while... another young family live there now and I'm happy.
Live withgrace and be for ever grateful che dio ti ha dato quei anni in toscana,

X

I'm sure you'll cheer up once the money is in your bank account!

The house was yours for a season, you both healed eachother in different ways. Just as the house carries evidence of your influence, so you do too, in your experiences and in the grace of beautiful memories.

Now your season has changed and you have a child, something else is here to be beautiful in your life, the money from the sale may go into something your son benefits from one day and loves.

“We feel it was such a privilege to have it and restore it and now we need to pass it on.”

And you know this, and you’re right. Nothing is for ever, OP. Maybe you’ll find somewhere different when your DC grows up, or maybe you’ll enjoy being able to stay in different places, without the worry of upkeep and cleaners and all the other stuff that goes with owning a property and trying to look after it long-distance. You have had the pleasure of restoring this place, and you can hand it on with gladness of heart, knowing that the people buying it like it for all the same reasons that attracted you to it in the first place.

We actually sold ours maybe three years ago now and as other posters have said very beautifully, in different ways, we’re are at peace with the decision. I still get a wistful pang when I hear ‘our’ town name mentioned, and I am proud of what we did with the place. I’m glad that locals bought it, actually: I feel they are rooted there and the bureaucratic irritations that we chafed at - partly because we were dealing with them from afar - will just be part of their DNA. plus of course they will be on the spot to deal with them.

Funnily enough, we are STILL getting random bills for, you know, 348 euros from the commune or 164 for the water company or 690 for the tax authorities every few months. We cannot fathom really what they are for. We closed everything down at the time and paid everything apparently owing. But still they pursue us. And yes. Everything but everything in person. Even our banking had to be done in person.

The moving out day was the worst actually. It was a heatwave like we are having now. And naturally there was a religious festival in the town square. We had a permit - imagine how painful it was to obtain it - for our one big lorry to come to the walls of the town and then two or three smaller vans to shuttle our furniture through the square to the big lorry. But on the day they wouldn’t let any of the vehicles anywhere through the outer walls at all. We had to borrow people’s cars 😱😱😱 and even then shuttle piles of possessions through the pedestrian zone to where they were parked. The removals men were in a total grump and refusing to help. One of their vans also got hit by a motorcyclist which didn’t help - the damage was bad. I was trying to charm strangers into helping me load massive sofas onto the roof of a fiat estate car in 40 deg heat. And borrowing trolleys from the tiny supermercato to skate our belongings down the steep hills. I’m feeling faint at the thought of it all. All the while the police were shouting at me to clear all our stuff from the square before the statue of the Virgin Mary came past with literally hundreds of worshippers and tourists. 👀 They changed the parade route without warning. Classic.

tbh it was such a fucking nightmare end that I handed over all our keys to the estate agent and drove off in a cloud of dust. funnily enough not all our possessions made it home safely…

i can now look back and laugh rather gingerly!

If you can avoid moving on a religious festival, I’d try.

@ChaliceinWonderland so grateful. I’ve woken up with a new peace about it. It’s a wonderful thing to pass on and I am really pleased the new owner adores it as much as we did.

@DidntLikeTheEnding that will defintely be nice. The restoration has paid off financially and we are lucky as they can sit on the market for years so we did something right there.

@Imisscoffee2021 oh that bright a tear, thank you. It’s so true it held us… there have been some horrific things our end this ten years- illness, catastrophe, mental health, conflicts, infertility, legal battles, diagnoses and it held us through all that and was kind enough not to have any major issues. Maybe I can hope that letting go of our beautiful safety net might mean a new easier era?