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Client Stories
Real Expat Mortgage Cases

Four clients. Four different starting points. One common assumption: "I probably can't get a mortgage in Italy." They were all wrong — and here's what actually happened.

📖 Stories shared with client permission · Names unchanged · Identifying property details omitted
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Caleb Miller
American · Milan · 2024
Non-resident → Resident
Impatriati regime

"I had no idea whether getting a mortgage as an American was even possible"

Caleb had been offered a position in Milan. The relocation package was solid, the role was a clear step up — but the property question was unresolved. He'd done enough research to know that the Impatriati regime would give him a significant tax advantage if he established fiscal residency in Italy quickly. What he hadn't figured out was whether a mortgage was even realistic.

He came to the first call with a specific fear: that Italian banks simply wouldn't accept US income documentation, and that he'd end up paying cash and missing a better financial structure in the process. "I assumed cash was the only option," he said. "I just didn't know where to start."

From that call, it became clear that Caleb was actually a strong profile — stable employed income, arriving as a resident under the Impatriati regime, buying a primary home in Milan. The challenge was the timing: he needed to establish fiscal residency before the end of the Italian tax year, and the mortgage had to close fast enough to give him an address to register.

We identified the right bank for his profile, prepared the file with his US income documentation translated and formatted correctly, and submitted in the same week. Pre-approval came back clean. Caleb signed at the notaio eleven weeks after our first call.

Outcome: Mortgage approved at 80% LTV (as a resident). Fiscal residency established in time for the Impatriati regime. Caleb now owns his Milan apartment — and kept his capital invested rather than liquidating it for a cash purchase.
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Audrey Vance
British · Milan · 2025
Post-Brexit buyer
Cross-border income

"One foot in two countries — and a mortgage application that reflected that"

Audrey had moved to Milan from London two years earlier. She was living in Italy, working partly for a UK-headquartered employer, earning in GBP, and filing taxes in both countries. She wanted to buy in Milan — but her financial situation was genuinely complex: cross-border employment, GBP salary paid into a UK account, and no clear Italian credit history.

She had already spoken to two Italian banks directly. Both had been polite but non-committal — one asked for documents she couldn't immediately provide; the other simply stopped responding after an initial meeting. She came to me frustrated, three months into a process that had gone nowhere.

Post-Brexit, British nationals are treated as third-country nationals in Italy, but Audrey had established Italian residency — which meant she could access up to 80% LTV if we found the right bank. The challenge was documenting her GBP income in a way that an Italian credit committee would read clearly. We restructured the file, selected a bank with genuine experience in UK income documentation, and submitted a clean dossier.

What struck Audrey most, she said later, was how straightforward the process felt once someone actually knew what they were doing. "By the time I signed, the process felt simple. In hindsight, it only felt that way because she made it so."

Outcome: Mortgage approved at 78% LTV on her Milan apartment. The entire process — from our first call to notaio — took 14 weeks. She now pays less per month on a mortgage than she was paying in rent.
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Theo Lambert
Français · Milan · 2025
3 ans résident
Suivi intégral en français

« Après trois ans à Milan, le système bancaire me paraissait encore opaque »

Theo vivait à Milan depuis trois ans — résident depuis peu, CDI dans une entreprise internationale, revenus stables en euros. Sur le papier, son profil était solide. Mais le système bancaire italien lui semblait encore impénétrable, et la perspective de devoir naviguer ce processus en italien l'avait jusqu'ici découragé d'aller plus loin.

Il avait tenté une démarche seul auprès d'une banque italienne l'année précédente. Le chargé de clientèle avait été accueillant, mais les explications étaient restées vagues — il n'avait pas bien compris ce qu'on lui demandait ni pourquoi. Le dossier n'avait jamais abouti.

Theo m'a contactée après avoir lu que je travaillais en français natif. Dès le premier appel, il a réalisé que ce qui lui semblait complexe ne l'était pas vraiment — ou plutôt, que la complexité était gérable avec quelqu'un qui en connaît chaque étape. Son profil était en réalité très favorable : résident en Italie, revenus en euros, CDI, achat d'une résidence principale à Milan.

J'ai sélectionné la banque la plus adaptée à son profil, préparé le dossier avec lui en français — chaque document expliqué, traduit où nécessaire — et coordonné l'ensemble du processus jusqu'à la signature. Il n'a eu à parler en italien que le jour de la signature chez le notaire, et encore : je l'avais préparé à chaque étape.

Résultat : Crédit accordé à 80 % de LTV. Signature chez le notaire 12 semaines après le premier appel. Theo dit avoir été accompagné « avec une rigueur et une patience qu'il n'attendait pas » — du premier appel jusqu'à la remise des clés.
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Nicholas Bozzo
American · Lake Como · 2025
Non-resident buyer
Remote purchase
Family roots

"My grandmother was born there. I wanted a house on the lake — and assumed cash was the only way"

Nicholas lives in New York. His family is originally from the Como area — his grandmother was born in a small town on the lake. For years, the idea of owning a house there had been something he'd filed away as a distant ambition. Then his grandmother passed, and the idea became more concrete. He started looking seriously.

His initial assumption was firm: living in New York, with no Italian residency and no Italian banking history, a mortgage was simply not an option. He had already begun structuring a cash purchase — moving capital, considering timing, talking to a notaio. Then a colleague who had bought in Milan mentioned my name.

Our first call changed his thinking entirely. As a non-resident American, he would be limited to 60% LTV — but that was still a meaningful lever. A property worth €800,000 on the lake meant a potential mortgage of up to €480,000, keeping a significant portion of his capital in the US rather than locked into Italian real estate. The math made sense.

The challenge was purely operational: he was buying remotely, in a secondary market (Lake Como rather than Milan), with US income documentation and no Italian presence. I managed everything — bank selection for non-resident US profiles, file preparation, liaison with the local estate agent and the notaio, and remote signing coordination. Nicholas never had to be in Italy until the day he signed.

Outcome: Mortgage approved at 60% LTV as a non-resident. Nicholas signed at the notaio in person on a single trip to Italy — everything else was handled remotely. "We have our house on the lake," he said. He kept the rest of his capital in the US.
The pattern across all four cases

The assumption was always wrong

Every single one of these clients arrived with some version of the same belief: "I probably can't get a mortgage in Italy." In every case, that belief was wrong — or at least much less accurate than they thought.

The real obstacle wasn't eligibility. It was information. Not knowing which banks work with expat profiles, not knowing how to present foreign income documentation, not knowing where the process actually gets difficult — and where it doesn't.

That's exactly the gap I fill. If you're an expat considering a property purchase in Italy and you haven't asked the question yet — ask it. The answer might surprise you.

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