Strange goings on with notaries and mortgages.

We are almost ready to finalise the mortgage on the house and thereby have enough funds to complete the building work!! It has taken so long because the previous owners had not asked their bank to remove the old ”ipoteca” which their bank had on the house even though they had repaid their mortgage, this took 3 months. The notary also discovered there were some old ‘subalterni’ still registered at the castasto which needed cancelling. I am not sure exactly what these are  but apparently they date back even before the previous owner so i am not sure why they were only discovered now?

And finally aparently it is required in order to do the mortgage that I declare that I am celibe (single) I cannot not do this myself in front of the notary but need a declaration from the commune where I am resident (Castelnuovo Magra) that I am single. Only they can do this. This seems very odd to me as the information that I am single I gave them in the first place but they are the only people who can do it and it is no use arguing. So next week I will visit the Commune to get this declaration in order to proceed.Lets hope it is that simple…..