What We Do, What It Costs, and Why It Works
Transparent legal protection for foreign buyers, before you sign or pay anything.
You should know exactly what you are paying for before you contact us.
This page covers every service we offer to buyers purchasing property in Italy, from a focused pre-offer check to full legal due diligence, with honest pricing and no hidden fees.
Who We Work With
We work for buyers. We are not real estate agents and we earn no commission on property sales, our only professional interest is identifying legal risk before you’re exposed to it.
- Buying residential or investment property in Sardinia or elsewhere in Italy, from abroad
- Needing independent legal verification before signing anything
- Dealing with inherited property, co-ownership, or title complications
- Drafting/Reviewing a Promise of Sale or preliminary contract already drafted by a notary or agent.
Everything is handled in English, in writing, remotely. No calls. No meetings. No pressure.
Strictly Legal, Strictly Independent
We are lawyers, not surveyors, not estate agents.
Our work stays strictly legal: title verification, planning and cadastral checks, contract negotiation, and due diligence. If our checks uncover technical, planning, or cadastral non-conformities, we don’t fix them ourselves, we make sure the seller pays for it: the corrections, the surveys, and any professional fees involved, all settled before completion, not after. We also don’t sell property and we don’t take commission on sales. If you need one, we can connect you with a trustworthy, highly qualified local agent, but that relationship stays separate from ours.
Their fees, their contract, their responsibility.
Ours stays limited to the legal side, so there’s never a conflict of interest.
Our Services at a Glance
| Service | What It Covers | Turnaround | Price |
| 1. Pre-Offer Risk Check | Go / no-go written assessment before you sign or pay anything, plus the minimum protective conditions to add to your offer. | 5–7 days | €450–€650 |
| 2. Title & Conservatoria Check | Full ownership and mortgage-register history, with a legal opinion on whether the title is clean. | 4–6 days | €650–€950 |
| 3. Planning & Cadastral Risk Check | Checks planning compliance and cadastral conformity; flags unauthorised works or landscape/coastal restrictions. | 5–7 days | €750–€1.150 |
| 4. Promise of Sale / Contract Review | Clause-by-clause review of the preliminary contract, with amendments ready to send to the other side. | 4–6 days | €850–€1.350 |
| 5. Inheritance & Co-Ownership Check | Reconstructs ownership history and confirms who else must be involved before the sale can proceed. | 6–9 days | €850–€1.350 |
| 6. Remote Buyer Protection Package | Combines services 1, 2 and 4 into one coordinated engagement, with a single summary report. | 8–12 days | €2.200–€3.500 |
| 7. Full Legal Due Diligence (Sardinia) | Complete purchase assistance from first check to the notarial deed, title, planning, contract and notary coordination. | Through to completion | See table below, typically €4.000–€9.250 |
Every service includes a written report in English and a fixed-fee quotation confirmed before we start. A full scope-of-work description for any service is available on request. Turnaround times are indicative, not guaranteed, they depend on our caseload at the time you instruct us, and can extend when we’re waiting on third parties, offices, or professionals outside our control.
Ministerial Fee Reference: Full Due Diligence
Our full legal due diligence fee is set by reference to the official Italian Ministerial Decree governing non-contentious (stragiudiziale) legal fees: DM 55/2014, as updated by DM 147/2022 (in force since 23 October 2022), and subsequent amendments.
| Transaction Value | Min (−50%) | Standard | Max (+50%) |
| Up to €1.100 | €142 | €284 | €426 |
| €1.101 – €5.200 | €638 | €1.276 | €1.914 |
| €5.201 – €26.000 | €993 | €1.985 | €2.978 |
| €26.001 – €52.000 | €1.205 | €2.410 | €3.615 |
| €52.001 – €260.000 | €2.268 | €4.536 | €6.804 |
| €260.001 – €520.000 | €3.082 | €6.164 | €9.246 |
| Above €520.000 | Decreasing percentage of value – from 3% down to 0.25% for very high values (Tabella 25, DM 147/2022). Exact rate confirmed in writing before we start. |
Source: Tabella 25, DM 55/2014 as amended by DM 147/2022. Assistenza stragiudiziale.
For transactions above €520,000, the Decree no longer applies a single fixed bracket: the applicable percentage decreases progressively as the transaction value rises. For example, a property purchased for €800,000 falls within this range, we confirm the exact percentage applicable to your transaction, in writing, before starting work.
No surprises.
We apply these parameters honestly, adjusting for the actual complexity of each transaction within the limits permitted by law. Every engagement begins with a written fee quotation specifying the applicable parameters and the exact scope of work.
No VAT 22% Saved Automatically
We operate under the Italian regime forfettario and do not charge VAT (IVA) on professional fees. Most Italian lawyers add 22% VAT on top of every fee, on a €6,000 fee, that is €1,320 our clients simply do not pay. This is a legitimate, statutory regime for qualifying Italian professionals, and for foreign buyers already managing a complex cross-border transaction, the saving is real and immediate.
What you see is what you pay.
Why Everything Is in Writing
After more than 15 years working with international clients across time zones, legal systems, and languages, we made a deliberate choice: all work is conducted by email, asynchronously, in English.
No calls. No meetings.
- A written record belongs to you, advice and risk flags you can share with your bank, accountant, or tax adviser
- No pressure to decide in real time, you read, reflect, and respond when ready
- No “I thought you said…” the correspondence is the record
- No language barrier under pressure, legal English is easier to absorb at your own pace than in a live call.
No calls. No meetings. No stress. Just law, in writing, from wherever you are.
Power of Attorney (POA) Purchases
We do not offer POA-based purchase assistance as a standard service. Completing a purchase by proxy, where a client grants us power of attorney to sign the deed on their behalf, requires a significantly higher level of coordination and legal responsibility. On the rare occasions we can accept this, it is handled case-by-case, subject to availability confirmed several months in advance, at fees reflecting the full complexity of the engagement. Contact us with full details and we will confirm honestly whether we can help within your timeframe.
Two Things Every Buyer Needs
Your money, protected until completion.
Where appropriate, we structure your purchase to use the notary’s escrow account (deposito prezzo, under Law 124/2017). Your funds sit there — not with the seller — and are only released once the deed is registered and the title is confirmed clean. If something goes wrong before then, your money hasn’t gone anywhere.
Your Codice Fiscale.
You need an Italian tax code to buy property or open a bank account in Italy, no way around it. We guide you through getting one, what’s needed and the fastest way to apply, while we focus on checking the property itself.
Capacity and Quality
We limit the number of new clients we accept at any given time.
“We say “no” often.”
Not because we want to turn away work, but because every client we accept must receive the same standard of attention, and we will not compromise that to take on more volume. When we are at capacity, we say so. We will not take your money and give you less than you deserve.
How to Get Started
Send us:
- The property listing (URL or PDF)
- A brief description of what you need, or simply “I am not sure yet”
- Any documents already received (offer, contract, title documents, contacts of other parties involved, such as agents, sellers, or surveyors).
We will review your situation and respond in writing with a clear description of what we can do for you, a written fee quotation, and proposed next steps.
No call required. No commitment to proceed. No fee for the initial assessment.
Send your enquiry to: govonilaw@gmail.com
Do You Want to Learn More?
- Promise of Sale / Contract Review: see exactly which protective clauses we negotiate before you sign.
- Inheritance & Co-Ownership Check: for buyers purchasing an inherited or co-owned property.
- Full Legal Due Diligence: the complete process behind our most comprehensive service.
- Remote Purchase & Power of Attorney: how a purchase works entirely from abroad.
- Notary Escrow Accounts: how your funds are protected until completion.
- Italian Tax Code (Codice Fiscale): a practical guide to getting yours.