Moving house can be one of the most stressful experiences of life, in line with divorce and death, I was reliably told! Moving abroad, however, takes on a whole new meaning of stress that goes way and beyond anything else in my opinion. It was September 2003 that we (my husband, our 2year old son and 6 dogs) moved to Italy. The car and small trailer was full to the brim and we certainly got some unusual looks when we pulled into a service station and took the dogs out for a stroll.
We had taken the decision that Italy would be a far nicer place to raise our son together with the added bonus of great food, wine and weather and so, rightly or wrongly, jumped in at the deep end and bought a property 12km north west of Perugia. I had spent 10 months searching the internet, making phone calls to agents and buying all the magazines but seemed to be getting nowhere. By now we had sold our house in England and so I was rather desperate to find something as quickly as possible and I 
was tired of traveling back and forth to Italy with baby in tow. We both had experience with property developing as this was our job in the UK so we wanted something that needed renovating. We also trusted our agents but unfortunately felt pressured into buying something that turned out wasn’t right and we found ourselves plunged into the deep end with no support. We hadn’t researched the area enough either and relied totally on what our agents told us which turned out to be untrue.
We had to find everything out the hard way, and believe me, it was the most stressful time of our 15 years together. I did, at least , speak an equate Italian which helped but having to deal with residency, schools, doctors and builders did take its toll added to the fact that we were in temporary accommodation while the work was being done on our house.
Eventually, after 18 months or so, everything settled down. Our son had started full time Nursery and we started to meet people both English and Italian. Having children certainly helps and we have met our best friends due to our son. It was at our son’s school where I met my business partner Bibi Barberi, and we now run a business called TurnKey Italia to help people relocate to Italy and so avoid all the traumas that I went through. We realized that so many people were struggling to manage either because of language difficulties or not knowing how the system works in Italy. We wanted to alleviate the stress and guide them through the process of finding the right property, relocating, project managing renovations, and generally helping them with every aspect of moving here. We would also offer our clients a huge range of contacts which we are constantly updating. Whether they needed a cleaner, caterer or personal trainer to advice on hiring professionals like Architects, Engineers and people in the building trade, we would put you in touch with the right person who is trustworthy and honest. We also helped clients obtain the necessary paperwork for residency, registering with the doctors and finding schools and Bibi, who speaks 4 languages, offered translation services. We would furnish your house providing everything necessary, allowing the client to walk through the door and enjoy their new home.
By providing a database of contacts we aimed to provide a comfort zone whereby people could continue life as normal, meet other expats and locals, have knowledge of where to find certain things that would help them settle with the minimum amount of stress.
My husband and I have now bought a Mill near Anghiari and were fortunate enough to have our faith restored after we met Real Estate agents Riccardo and Marta. They not only managed to sell our house near Perugia but we have bought and sold through them twice since. If you are fortunate enough to find a trustworthy agent then you are half way there but the difficulty is knowing who to trust. When moving abroad, no matter how much you prepare yourself for every eventuality; there are always those unforeseen circumstances that occur. It’s also very important to find out about the area you think you want to live in which of course can be difficult unless you are actually living here. We have no regrets at all moving to Italy and feel that despite a rocky start, we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. We hope that everyone else who moves here feels the same way.
Note: TurnKey is based in Tuscany and Umbria and therefore covers a wide area and would be happy to hear from anyone who feels they can offer a service and wish to go on our database of contacts as well as anyone who needs our relocation services. For more information visit www.turnkeyitalia.com .
