Buying a home in Sappada: where to start

Sappada has 1,320 residents and 2,762 dwellings: 76.5% of them are not occupied by residents. The figure does not mean “second homes”: it covers holiday homes, homes let to tourists and empty ones. It does tell you that here a house owned by someone from elsewhere is the rule.

Registered tourist overnight stays number 118,461 a year: summer accounts for 54.9%, winter for 40.8% and the shoulder months for 4.3%. Two full seasons and two long pauses, during which some of the shops close: before buying, it is worth seeing the village in November as well.

Since 16 December 2017 Sappada has been part of Friuli Venezia Giulia: local taxes and grants are those of the Region, starting with ILIA, which replaces IMU here.

Fourteen hamlets stand in a row on the right bank of the Piave, on the south-facing slope; Cima Sappada sits on a terrace of its own, further east. From Lerpa to Cima it is 5.1 km by road.⁶

Two parallel roads explain almost everything. The old road links the historic cores halfway up the slope; the new road, built in 1922, runs lower down and is today the regional road. On the regional road there are shops, buses and a carriageway that is always cleared; on the old road there is quiet and timber houses, with one more climb.

Services are mostly between Bach and Palù. The old timber is in Sappada Vecchia and in Cima; Bach and Granvilla, which burned down on 13 September 1908 and 9 October 1928, were rebuilt in masonry.

Then there is the sun. On 21 December the hours of direct sunlight range from about 75 min in Cretta to about 5 h 30 min in Pill: the profile of the mountains to the south decides. These are calculations on the terrain model, under a clear sky.

Homes for sale fall into four families. They differ not only in price: they differ in what you can do with them.

For an old house the first question to put to the municipality is which zone of the land-use plan the building is in and which protection grade it has. There are 7 grades, from restoration to demolition and rebuilding. In the historic hamlets no volume can be added and no above-ground garages can be built: a covered parking space has to be found, and written into the deed.³

The official value describes sales of homes in “normal” condition: a new build in a high energy class has no line of its own, and in listings it sits above the top of the range. The portal price is an average of asking prices over a few dozen listings: one new development is enough to shift it.

An example. With €350,000 you buy about 140 m² at the mid-point of the official range and about 98 m² at the average asking price, before taxes and costs.

A mountain home is judged by its documents as much as by a viewing. Ask for them before the preliminary contract.⁷

The land-use plan also maps geologically unstable areas and sites at risk of avalanche: the maps are read for the specific plot, with a surveyor.³

The order is that of any Italian sale: offer, preliminary contract, deed.

The preliminary contract fixes the price, the deposit and the date of the deed, and must be registered.⁵ The notary is chosen by the buyer: he or she checks title, mortgages and compliance, and on request holds the balance in escrow until the deed is recorded.⁷ The deed is recorded in the land registers: the land-book system that applies in Tarvisio does not exist in Sappada.⁴

Buyers from abroad need an Italian tax code before the preliminary contract. If a party does not know Italian, notarial law provides for a deed with a translation or for an interpreter.⁸

It depends on who is selling. From a private seller, for a second home, registration tax is 9%, but on the cadastral value and not on the price. From the developer you pay VAT at 10% on the full price.⁵

For the agency, the custom recorded in the province of Udine is 3% of the price from each party, plus VAT: it applies where the parties have agreed nothing else.⁹ Then come the yearly costs: ILIA, waste tax, heating.

• Heating is expensive. Sappada is in climate zone F, the coldest in the national classification, and has no mains natural gas.
• There are two roads, one per side. From the motorway there is still about an hour of mountain road, and now and then one of the two is cut.
• The hospital is not in the village. The nearest are in Pieve di Cadore, about 50 min away, and in Tolmezzo, about 70 min: estimated times, without snow.
• December is not the same for everyone. In some hamlets the midday sun stays behind the mountains for weeks.

SappadaVillas is the TriesteVillas group's website for Sappada. We are an estate agency based in Trieste: we have no office in Sappada, and we come by appointment. The catalogue is small: today it lists 3 homes, 2 of them for sale. If you are looking here, tell us what for: we will write when a matching home comes in.