Shipping American Household to Italy

[Doug]

Hi All,
We're only aware of Stuart and Janet as far as other Americans in the Scalea area. If there is a yank on the forum who has experience shipping (forwarding) household belongs to Italy, we'd like to hear your story. Talking to the Honorary Italian Vice Consul here, we'll definitely need a visa, but even he is not too sure whether we also need the permesso di soggiorno as well which is obtained from our comune of Santa Domenica. If the latter is a requirement, we will not ship things next month as planned knowing it can take months to get the PdS. We're told that without the correct documents, the Italians will levy a very hefty import duty on the stuff.

We're asking for American input surmising that EU residents might be treated a little differently. But we'll take stories from UK shippers too if you think it would help.

We are scrambling because our place here sold much more quickly than we expected and we had not looked into all these details. We must move off the farm by Oct 10 and don't want to move the furnishings twice if we can avoid it. It might be sweet to have real furniture in Santa Domenica for Xmas. Thanks

[Lynn]

Hi Doug, great news about your sale. Wish i could help with the funiture and visa issue but no doubt someone can.

regards to you both,

Lynn

[Doug]

Hi Lynn and Hi to that high stakes golfer too,

The moving company's Italian contact is saying we'll need the residency permit (permesso). Gian and others have said it can take awhile to get, but maybe the locals in Santa Domenica are quicker than the Scalea bunch Giancarlo and Elaine were waiting for. In a pinch, I guess I could make the sacrafice of spending 6 weeks in Italy to get the permit in-place before the furniture arrived. I'll check with Derek and Monica to learn how quickly the officials in SDT work.

The good news is the visa process is less demanding. No more FBI background checks, and the Vice Consul here in Oregon will send our paperwork to the big guys in San Francisco for us. Did you know that us non-EU types must show that we have "means of subsistence" to cover 17,04 euros each per day, or about 36800 euros for 3 years.

Oh, John mentioned he might be able to email photos of the golf course inside a race track or something in the Durban area?? If so: rainshadow@centurytel.net

Saluti simpatici,
Doug

[Italy4me]

Hi Doug,
The financial means test is the same for EU citizens too!
When we were first applying for residency we needed to apply for a permesso (the rules have now changed for EU folk and residency is now granted by your home comune).
We applied at Paola (needed to apply at the Questura not the comune) in March 2006.
In March 2007 we still had not received it.....
Whenever we called in to ask about its progress we were told "it takes a while as the paperwork gets sent to Cosenza and they have a lot of work there".

Have you been told that you can get a permesso from your comune?
I hope so as that might the process quicker!

Regards, Lesley

[Doug]

Hi Lesley,
Yes the Questura is the place to go -- I meant the questura in SDT, not the comune office itself. That news does not bode well! I asked Derek if Josephina could inquire of the police in Santa Domenica how long it would take. If the SDT office still has to go thru Cosenza, I can certainly see how the time would lengthen. And we're talking Italian time I must remind myself. We must rid ourselves of impulsive American behavior. Domani, domani

If faced with what you had, we'll just put everything in storage until we can get the permesso completed. Sure would be nice to have more than a bed and card table in the new apartment........ maybe Santa will bring some furniture when we arrive for the holidays. He still has an outlet store in Grisolia right?

Ciao a presto,
Doug

[brynithel3]

Hi Doug

As we all know in Italy it is important to have a "friend".

Could a bottle of Scotch, or something similar, help to ease the journey of the said furniture through customs. If not it might mean that you will have to "cadge" some before Xmas.

Ciao

John

[Doug]

Hi John,
We may have the help without a cadge. Di just heard from the moving guy in Naples who hints that the customs officials don't question the value we place on your shipment of "old used , beatup furniture and household belongings" , so the VAT/duty on a 20ft container might only be 3000 euro or so and that much might otherwise be burned up in 2 years of storage of the stuff. Much better than the 10,000 we were first threatened with. He may earn himself some Kentucky sippin' whiskey and of course a couple bottles for the stout young men who pack 7000 lbs. of stuff down those 58 steps.

At least we're running into new options.

Ciao,

Doug

[Italy4me]

Glad to see you are becoming very Italian D & D- LOL!
L & B

[Doug]

Jeepers, After several days of flying messages and angnst, I'm pleased we have gotten good information from FOS International in Napoli. I highly recommend them for their quick and clear customer service. We had gotten misinformation from books, other forums and an American moving service that does military people, but few civilians. And much of the uproar was the assumption we'd want to avoid paying any VAT or duties. The bottomline now is the VAT/duty is only about Euro 465 each. I certainly cannot complain considering the service we'll get. Now, all the documents we need are a list of belongings in Italian, copies of passports and codice fiscale. Piece of cake eh? We'll still begin the permesso di soggiorno process when we get there this winter as that is definitely needed to buy a car.

Ciao, Doug

[brynithel3]

Hi Doug

Well you said you had to be off the farm by the 10th, how has the move progressed? Come on give us all an update or are you still a little busy?

I hope everything is going smoothly.

Ciao

John

[Doug]

Greetings John,
Thanks for asking. Yes, the movers came last week, packed and moved us away from the place we gave 17 years to. The shipment may have been placed on a ship in Portland today and is due in Naples Nov 9. Course, there is an 85% chance of it arriving on time. I'm going over Nov 7 to meet it, but plan to work on the apartment while waiting for my ship to come home. I may be doing some final haggling with Sarubbi mobili over our kitchen cabinet order too! Will be taking more photos for Di's restoration diary thread. Tony's recent photos show good looking new doors and windows.

Di is taking the shipping inventory/manifest into a new form for insurance, then we must translate it into Italian. It's funny that we can buy property there using a proxy like Tony, but must be in the country in person when a shipment arrives. I guess if they find drugs or nuclear devices, they'd want to collar the culprits quickly.

We are meeting with the Italian Vice Consul this week to apply for the Elective Residence visa in preparation for applying for Residency with the Comune of Santa Domenico. I think we're getting more comfortable with the various processes we must deal with over there.

Anyway, we are settling into city living and we enjoyed a nice walk around town in lovely fall weather today. Tomorrow I watch our new 105mm howitzer artillery piece be installed in its placement where we'll use it for avalanche control. During my final 2 years of government service, I'll be a gunner....or more correctly, oversee the young gunners at one of the ski areas!

Be well and do good things John,

[brynithel3]

Hi Doug

How has the move progressed? Everything go smoothly at the port in Napoli?

Ciao

John

[Doug]

Howdy John,
No, of course things haven't gone perfectly, but I could not blame Italians the first part because I think the first ship (Stella B) was under US flag. The container reached Cagliari, Sardinia last Friday and now it sits on the dock until Nov 22 when it (maybe) finally is shipped to Napoli. I understand this is all pretty typical of shipping. Anyway, I've changed airline tickets twice now, with penalties, and am planning to arrive Scalea the 26th and hopefully have the goods arrive in Santa Domenica that Friday, or Monday Dec 1. I doubt they could safely store a container for a month and send it down when we're there at xmas, and it would not be stored free, so we'll stay with it.

We're closer! Our American contact will track the container again this Thursday to make sure things are tracking right. In pre-internet and GPS days, we would have been completely in the dark. There's always mechanical problems, union issues etc etc that can affect all this.

Did I ever mention the marvelous service we got from the Italian Consulate in San Francisco? They processed our long term visa applications in just a few days and had the passports returned to us in no time. Nice personal service and messages from the employees. Americans using Consulates in Los Angeles and other cities have not been as lucky according to internet forums.

Augueri,