Considering a rental investment in Puglia? We give our thoughts about where to look and the process of renting a holiday home in Puglia.
In part 2 of a 2 part article we consider the process of renting your property as a holiday home in Puglia.
How #1
When renting your property as a holiday rental (casa vacanze) it is a legal requirement that you report all guests to the authorities within 24 hours of their arrival. This includes guests who are Italian residents.
You are also responsible for collecting any local tourist taxes.
For this purpose you must register your property via the Polizia di Stato website.
To do this you must first register the property with the Puglia DMS (Digital Management System) to obtain a CIS (Codice Identificativo di Struttura), for which you will need a SPID.
You will also need a PEC email address.
How #2 | Getting a PEC
PEC (pronounced "peck", Posta Elettronica Certificata) is a certified email account that gives you proof your message arrived.
Messages sent between PEC accounts are certified with a date and time stamp to show when you sent them and when they were received, with a record of receipt automatically emailed to you as an attachment.
They have the same legal value as a physical lettera raccomandata (registered letter).
In some cases PEC may be the only way to send something online. For example an application by email to the questura for a carta di soggiorno can only be done emailing the questura's PEC address, which has to be done from another PEC account.
However any such email does have to come from an account in your own name. Someone else with a PEC - an employer, lawyer, family member or friend - can send the message on your behalf.
PEC accounts are managed by government-approved private providers. Poste Italiane, Aruba and InfoCert (Legalmail) are the most popular. A full list of authorised PEC providers is found here.
In most cases you'll also have to pay for a PEC account, with fees usually charged on an annual basis. Our PEC provider is Poste Italiane, costing €16.47 for a 3 year account with 100 MB of storage.
More | for more information about PEC (in English). Look out for | the Poste Italiane route requires you to sign the online generated contract and email it with a copy of ID before it will be activated. But they will not email you to tell you about this, you need to check your online notifications once you log into the PI site.
How to #3 | Getting a SPID
SPID (Sistema Pubblico di Identità Digitale) is electronic ID system allowing residents to access public services online.
It is set up using a single username and password to access Italian government services online, bypassing the need to subsequently present to an agency in person or show physical ID.
See the official Italian Government FAQ (in English) on how to get and activate your SPID.