15. Update on Bureaucracy...

A picture is worth a thousand words, but the sunrise over our beautiful pool doesn’t quite convey the worry that we may never actually start construction on the main buildings. As we all were warned by everyone before beginning this project, Italian bureaucracy is a complex and intricate system.

We submitted our permits in July, and then August came, which is the month that Italy goes on vacation. This was no problem, but come September we learned that over the course of the summer, the office that approves permits for these projects lost their employees. Some were on vacation, some had left work permanently. Regardless, we all did our best to figure out what was going on. Eventually we were assured someone was looking at our permits.

It is now November. We await the arrival of our permits. We were recently told that if we email the office, they legally have 30 days to reply. And we are at liberty to escalate, but the escalation bureau then has 40 days to reply. So at this point we’re on hold.