The Author

Ramsay Gilderdale

is the only English estate agent in Sicily who has passed the required exams and has a licence to operate.  He moved to Italy full time 7 years ago, after a successful career in the UK as an actor and TV writer. After a stint teaching English at the Università Orientale in Naples, he set up Barocco Modicasa - the only legally operating English estate agency based in Sicily.  He contributes to the Italymag forum and Trip Advisor as well as helping people who have had unfortunate experiences buying with other agents to resolve their difficulties.

“Before I moved out to Italy, I read all the books about buying property, finding work and dealing with Italian bureucracy - and they were all hopelessly out of date.  Not only that, but nearly all the books relegate Sicily and the south of italy to a small paragraph about the mafia.  If you’re looking to buy in Sicily you really don’t want to know about the problems of living in Venice or the price of apartments in Rome.  The authors were without exception nice people who had bought and restored a ruin, and as such felt empowered to write a book telling people how to buy a property in Italy.  Frequently inaccurate and misleading, such books don’t help potential purchasers with the minefield of Italian property law and local custom.  I decided that by writing a guide dedicated to Sicily, with constant downloadable updates I would better serve potential buyers in all of Italy, who are trying to keep abreast of the constantly changing laws.”