Destiny, is it a real thing?
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As I keep you all entertained with my piano search I thought many would also find interesting, my efforts to export myself to Italy. Certain things that have happened thus far lend me to believe that there is something out there, up there, around here, that has ability to pull the puppet strings here and there to help one achieve things that are meant to be.
First, the impossible appointment to book. Many on the FB group for expats in Italy have warned me of the difficulty one has to just make an appointment with one's local Italian consulate to apply for the elective residence visa I need to live in Sardinia. I don't know how many times I logged into the booking site to only be told there are no appointments available. After a month of daily efforts, I got lucky and grabbed an open one that appeared. June 5th in San Francisco. I better wear warm clothes. Mark Twain is famous for saying the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.
Next, and probably the most difficult task and requirement to have in hand at this appointment, procuring a signed lease of at least 1 year for a dwelling in Italy to prove to them I have a place to lay my head. Kinda hard to do from California one would immediately think. The site Idealista was my go to for seeing from afar, what was available for long term rent and pet friendly. The choices with those two filters are very slim. Sardinia is big on short term rentals for the tourists , not so much for long term. I did espy a villa though, close to the capitol city of Cagliari that met those conditions and I messaged the landlord who responded back quickly, telling me that he is also an American. Dual citizenship entrepreneur from lower Manhattan and Rome, all of 30 years old with wife and 2 young babies. We hit it off quickly on the phone and he has committed to drawing up the lease for me that wouldn't even begin until January 2026, when I propose to move there.
Then there is the alternate route that actually would give me full citizenship over this ERV visa which just gives me resident status. Adopted at birth, I never knew my genealogy, until I was 35 years old and my birth mother and I found each other which is another fascinating story all by itself. Turns out my grandmother, maiden name Florence Burreiscci, was born here in California from 2 parents that migrated from Mezzojuso, Sicily back in 1909, via the ship Perugula at Ellis Island. My great grandfather and grandmother Cristoforo and Francesca are my bloodline to obtain citizenship via Italy's law of jure sanguinis (right of blood). But this can be difficult to prove, trying to locate certain documents such as birth certificates , naturalization documents, etc. I have found a second cousin once removed who has given me some starter info and has pointed me to another cousin who I recently talked with and has pointed me to another relative who may have some of these important docs. The trail may be cold due to time, but there are always bits of DNA that one can always discover as a good sleuth. I am hopeful that I will be successful in this hunt.
But the more I learn of both of these processes, the more questions arise that are hard to get reliable answers to. The rules are many in Italy, and they change constantly. Rules for the ERV, Citizenship, health care, and most important of all, TAXES.
Answers to my taxation questions on the FB group are varied and many contradict each other. One is left more confused on how it all actually works, and the best advice many give is to find a competent commercialista (professional with a degree in economics and commerce),to discuss my situation with and give me the lowdown on how my passive retirement income streams will be taxed in both countries and how to proactively set things up to my best advantage.
There are many sites on the internet advertising various services of assistance for all of these things, but not so much any "one stop shopping" business that could handle and answer all of the different aspects of what I am faced with.
But I saw this one site called MovetoDolceVita.com. It is an Italian law firm out of Milan that specializes in assisting with all of these issues, visas, citizenship, taxes, real estate, etc. I sent an email requesting a consult and I will just paste here recent emails traded between myself and this Italian tax attorney:"Thanks a lot for contacting us. My name is Marco Mesina and I am an Italian tax attorney based in Milan and founder of Move to Dolce Vita.
Thank you as well for the detailed information you’ve shared. It’s very helpful to have a full picture of your plans, including your upcoming retirement, the ERV visa application, and your various sources of passive income from the U.S.
To assist you properly, I propose an initial consultation via video meeting, during which I will carry out an analysis of your income and assets in light of your relocation to Italy, and in particular to Sardinia. We’ll also review whether you may benefit from the 7% flat tax regime for retirees relocating to small towns in Southern Italy. The cost for this consultation is €250, and it includes a full review and discussion of your financial situation and potential tax implications.
If, following the meeting, you would like a written tax analysis report, I can prepare it at an additional cost of around €800–1,000, depending on the complexity of your case.
To help me prepare for our consultation, I’m attaching a Wealth and Income Report form. Kindly fill it in with as much detail as possible if you wish to proceed.
Separately, we can also explore your eligibility for Italian citizenship by descent, but I understand that at this stage, your main priority is to understand the tax implications of your move.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Marco Mesina""Thank you for responding so quickly Mr. Mesina. It appears I have found a "one stop shopping" business here! A pleasure to make you acquaintance and I hope that I have found a resource who has great knowledge of all things surrounding residency visa, citizenship, taxes, real estate and anything else I should know about living in Italy. I fell in love with your country during the middle 1980's as I was in the Navy with shore duty in Naples. I actually arrived there about the same time their "patron saint" Diego Maradona arrived at Club Napoli. He sure was loved and revered by all Napolitans. And those Napolitans are part of the reason I wish to retire to Italy. They were the nicest happy jovial people I ever met and living amongst such people just makes life so much more enjoyable, no? Sardinia calls to me like a Siren though as I had a very vivid dream 5 months ago. It simply told me my destiny after I retire. And it was Sardinia. I have never been to Sardinia and only knew it was an island out in the middle of the Mediterranean. After I looked it up on the internet and saw the pictures I knew then why the dream came as it did. Sardinia to me is the closest thing to paradise that I can see on this whole Earth. I love oceans and the beach. My soul comes to a peace when standing on one. So why not retire to one? The dream was not specific though as it didn't foretell what part of Sardinia I would reside. But I now have plane tickets and reservations and rental car ready on April 20th, when I will be there to tour the whole island. Before I decide on the consultation, may I ask if you are indeed the man who knows all the rules and laws and ins and outs of a man like me trying to retire to Italy? Can you be my champion to guide me through it all and take the stress load off my back? I want to live there so bad but am afraid I will be told No at every turn. Obviously, tax advice is crucial as well and how to navigate the ever changing rules and laws. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Nobody's Sock"
"Hi Nobody's Sock,
Thanks a lot for your email. To be honest, your email almost made me cry as I am from Sardinia as well and hearing these beautiful words about my island is touching.
I want to have a very preliminary video call with you (free of charge) just to know each other and explain how I can assist you in the process of relocating to Italy. I am sure I can support you in many aspects of this process.
In which time zone are you? I can propose to you a few slots based on your time zone between this and the next week.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Marco"" Amazing! Then you can assist even further with your intimate knowledge of Sardinia! I have to tell you Marco, things have been happening for me that would normally be very difficult to achieve in my pursuit to live in Sardinia. I feel it is my destiny. Now finding you, a Sardinian attorney in Milan (talk about 2 different worlds!), is just another piece of this destiny unfolding I feel.
I propose to move to Sardinia in January 2026. I will be in Sardinia this April and meeting a landlord who has offered to me a 1 year lease on a villa he owns. I am retiring from work on 12/31/25 after over 41 years of federal service. and will earn a comfortable amount of passive income to more than meet the requirements of Italy.
Signore Mesina, ancora una volta, e un piacere fare la vostra conoscenza.Sinceremente,
Il Calzino di Nessuno"
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Sardinia offers €15,000 (about $16,200 USD) to those who move to a rural area and renovate a home.
-
As I keep you all entertained with my piano search I thought many would also find interesting, my efforts to export myself to Italy. Certain things that have happened thus far lend me to believe that there is something out there, up there, around here, that has ability to pull the puppet strings here and there to help one achieve things that are meant to be.
First, the impossible appointment to book. Many on the FB group for expats in Italy have warned me of the difficulty one has to just make an appointment with one's local Italian consulate to apply for the elective residence visa I need to live in Sardinia. I don't know how many times I logged into the booking site to only be told there are no appointments available. After a month of daily efforts, I got lucky and grabbed an open one that appeared. June 5th in San Francisco. I better wear warm clothes. Mark Twain is famous for saying the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.
Next, and probably the most difficult task and requirement to have in hand at this appointment, procuring a signed lease of at least 1 year for a dwelling in Italy to prove to them I have a place to lay my head. Kinda hard to do from California one would immediately think. The site Idealista was my go to for seeing from afar, what was available for long term rent and pet friendly. The choices with those two filters are very slim. Sardinia is big on short term rentals for the tourists , not so much for long term. I did espy a villa though, close to the capitol city of Cagliari that met those conditions and I messaged the landlord who responded back quickly, telling me that he is also an American. Dual citizenship entrepreneur from lower Manhattan and Rome, all of 30 years old with wife and 2 young babies. We hit it off quickly on the phone and he has committed to drawing up the lease for me that wouldn't even begin until January 2026, when I propose to move there.
Then there is the alternate route that actually would give me full citizenship over this ERV visa which just gives me resident status. Adopted at birth, I never knew my genealogy, until I was 35 years old and my birth mother and I found each other which is another fascinating story all by itself. Turns out my grandmother, maiden name Florence Burreiscci, was born here in California from 2 parents that migrated from Mezzojuso, Sicily back in 1909, via the ship Perugula at Ellis Island. My great grandfather and grandmother Cristoforo and Francesca are my bloodline to obtain citizenship via Italy's law of jure sanguinis (right of blood). But this can be difficult to prove, trying to locate certain documents such as birth certificates , naturalization documents, etc. I have found a second cousin once removed who has given me some starter info and has pointed me to another cousin who I recently talked with and has pointed me to another relative who may have some of these important docs. The trail may be cold due to time, but there are always bits of DNA that one can always discover as a good sleuth. I am hopeful that I will be successful in this hunt.
But the more I learn of both of these processes, the more questions arise that are hard to get reliable answers to. The rules are many in Italy, and they change constantly. Rules for the ERV, Citizenship, health care, and most important of all, TAXES.
Answers to my taxation questions on the FB group are varied and many contradict each other. One is left more confused on how it all actually works, and the best advice many give is to find a competent commercialista (professional with a degree in economics and commerce),to discuss my situation with and give me the lowdown on how my passive retirement income streams will be taxed in both countries and how to proactively set things up to my best advantage.
There are many sites on the internet advertising various services of assistance for all of these things, but not so much any "one stop shopping" business that could handle and answer all of the different aspects of what I am faced with.
But I saw this one site called MovetoDolceVita.com. It is an Italian law firm out of Milan that specializes in assisting with all of these issues, visas, citizenship, taxes, real estate, etc. I sent an email requesting a consult and I will just paste here recent emails traded between myself and this Italian tax attorney:"Thanks a lot for contacting us. My name is Marco Mesina and I am an Italian tax attorney based in Milan and founder of Move to Dolce Vita.
Thank you as well for the detailed information you’ve shared. It’s very helpful to have a full picture of your plans, including your upcoming retirement, the ERV visa application, and your various sources of passive income from the U.S.
To assist you properly, I propose an initial consultation via video meeting, during which I will carry out an analysis of your income and assets in light of your relocation to Italy, and in particular to Sardinia. We’ll also review whether you may benefit from the 7% flat tax regime for retirees relocating to small towns in Southern Italy. The cost for this consultation is €250, and it includes a full review and discussion of your financial situation and potential tax implications.
If, following the meeting, you would like a written tax analysis report, I can prepare it at an additional cost of around €800–1,000, depending on the complexity of your case.
To help me prepare for our consultation, I’m attaching a Wealth and Income Report form. Kindly fill it in with as much detail as possible if you wish to proceed.
Separately, we can also explore your eligibility for Italian citizenship by descent, but I understand that at this stage, your main priority is to understand the tax implications of your move.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Marco Mesina""Thank you for responding so quickly Mr. Mesina. It appears I have found a "one stop shopping" business here! A pleasure to make you acquaintance and I hope that I have found a resource who has great knowledge of all things surrounding residency visa, citizenship, taxes, real estate and anything else I should know about living in Italy. I fell in love with your country during the middle 1980's as I was in the Navy with shore duty in Naples. I actually arrived there about the same time their "patron saint" Diego Maradona arrived at Club Napoli. He sure was loved and revered by all Napolitans. And those Napolitans are part of the reason I wish to retire to Italy. They were the nicest happy jovial people I ever met and living amongst such people just makes life so much more enjoyable, no? Sardinia calls to me like a Siren though as I had a very vivid dream 5 months ago. It simply told me my destiny after I retire. And it was Sardinia. I have never been to Sardinia and only knew it was an island out in the middle of the Mediterranean. After I looked it up on the internet and saw the pictures I knew then why the dream came as it did. Sardinia to me is the closest thing to paradise that I can see on this whole Earth. I love oceans and the beach. My soul comes to a peace when standing on one. So why not retire to one? The dream was not specific though as it didn't foretell what part of Sardinia I would reside. But I now have plane tickets and reservations and rental car ready on April 20th, when I will be there to tour the whole island. Before I decide on the consultation, may I ask if you are indeed the man who knows all the rules and laws and ins and outs of a man like me trying to retire to Italy? Can you be my champion to guide me through it all and take the stress load off my back? I want to live there so bad but am afraid I will be told No at every turn. Obviously, tax advice is crucial as well and how to navigate the ever changing rules and laws. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Nobody's Sock"
"Hi Nobody's Sock,
Thanks a lot for your email. To be honest, your email almost made me cry as I am from Sardinia as well and hearing these beautiful words about my island is touching.
I want to have a very preliminary video call with you (free of charge) just to know each other and explain how I can assist you in the process of relocating to Italy. I am sure I can support you in many aspects of this process.
In which time zone are you? I can propose to you a few slots based on your time zone between this and the next week.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Marco"" Amazing! Then you can assist even further with your intimate knowledge of Sardinia! I have to tell you Marco, things have been happening for me that would normally be very difficult to achieve in my pursuit to live in Sardinia. I feel it is my destiny. Now finding you, a Sardinian attorney in Milan (talk about 2 different worlds!), is just another piece of this destiny unfolding I feel.
I propose to move to Sardinia in January 2026. I will be in Sardinia this April and meeting a landlord who has offered to me a 1 year lease on a villa he owns. I am retiring from work on 12/31/25 after over 41 years of federal service. and will earn a comfortable amount of passive income to more than meet the requirements of Italy.
Signore Mesina, ancora una volta, e un piacere fare la vostra conoscenza.Sinceremente,
Il Calzino di Nessuno"
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@Mik said in Destiny, is it a real thing?:
Serendipity combined with perseverance is unbeatable.
And now backed with my own Roman gladiator, gladius blade in hand, ready to thrust and cut through the Italian beauracracy at any given moment to create an open lane for me to drive my chariot through and retire to my ancient enchanted land and reap the spoils of retirement after years in the pits. -
Sardinia offers €15,000 (about $16,200 USD) to those who move to a rural area and renovate a home.
@Copper said in Destiny, is it a real thing?:
Sardinia offers €15,000 (about $16,200 USD) to those who move to a rural area and renovate a home.
many have made mention to this deal Italy has going on trying to reinstigate population growth in depressed areas of the country, mostly small towns that are near ghost towns now as the kids, when done with school all end up moving out of country for work. There are sticky rules to take such an offer though. One would be required to pay for renovations desparately needed in these homes in question. much more than the 15K.
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@Copper said in Destiny, is it a real thing?:
Sardinia offers €15,000 (about $16,200 USD) to those who move to a rural area and renovate a home.
many have made mention to this deal Italy has going on trying to reinstigate population growth in depressed areas of the country, mostly small towns that are near ghost towns now as the kids, when done with school all end up moving out of country for work. There are sticky rules to take such an offer though. One would be required to pay for renovations desparately needed in these homes in question. much more than the 15K.
@NobodySock said in Destiny, is it a real thing?:
@Copper said in Destiny, is it a real thing?:
Sardinia offers €15,000 (about $16,200 USD) to those who move to a rural area and renovate a home.
many have made mention to this deal Italy has going on trying to reinstigate population growth in depressed areas of the country, mostly small towns that are near ghost towns now as the kids, when done with school all end up moving out of country for work. There are sticky rules to take such an offer though. One would be required to pay for renovations desparately needed in these homes in question. much more than the 15K.
Yes, I have seen those offers of a house for a euro. From a distance, looks like fun, but I am sure that the reality is not quite as fun. LOL
