Developing your property – Land
Land
When buying property here it is very tempting purchase a whole chunk of land to go with it as land here is very cheap, but it may be a good idea to think twice before doing so. It is a lovely idea to own your own Olive grove with the dream of producing your own olive oil especially as the vendor knows someone who will look after the land for you completely free as long as he can have a percentage of the Olive oil for his services. Almost sounds to good to be true doesn’t it. While these arrangements do exist in many circumstances they don’t last and can often cause problems if you want to change the arrangements at a later date. There is also a law here that if someone works the land for a certain number of years they can stake a legal claim to it so be careful. Land needs looking after and that will cost money and will not really add anything to the rental potential of your property and will obviously eat into your profits. Offering your guests the opportunity to wander through 10,000 square mtrs of Olive grove or Oak forest sounds nice but in reality they won’t, especially in the heat of the summer. Yes, you will be able to produce some wonderful olive oil but the costs involved in this means that it is far cheaper to go and buy a few litres from the frantoia rather than making your own but even if you don’t want to harvest the olives the trees will still need to be pruned and the land around them maintained especially as we are now in the days of xyella.
Obviously, if your budget is huge, money is no object or you are looking to create an agriturismo style property then go ahead, there is plenty of land available.
When buying property here it is very tempting purchase a whole chunk of land to go with it as land here is very cheap, but it may be a good idea to think twice before doing so. It is a lovely idea to own your own Olive grove with the dream of producing your own olive oil especially as the vendor knows someone who will look after the land for you completely free as long as he can have a percentage of the Olive oil for his services. Almost sounds to good to be true doesn’t it. While these arrangements do exist in many circumstances they don’t last and can often cause problems if you want to change the arrangements at a later date. There is also a law here that if someone works the land for a certain number of years they can stake a legal claim to it so be careful. Land needs looking after and that will cost money and will not really add anything to the rental potential of your property and will obviously eat into your profits. Offering your guests the opportunity to wander through 10,000 square mtrs of Olive grove or Oak forest sounds nice but in reality they won’t, especially in the heat of the summer. Yes, you will be able to produce some wonderful olive oil but the costs involved in this means that it is far cheaper to go and buy a few litres from the frantoia rather than making your own but even if you don’t want to harvest the olives the trees will still need to be pruned and the land around them maintained especially as we are now in the days of xyella.
Obviously, if your budget is huge, money is no object or you are looking to create an agriturismo style property then go ahead, there is plenty of land available.
