An occupied unit is a unit for sale in which someone lives or works. Usually it is a tenanted unit, with the lease still running or recently expired; in properties from non-performing loans (NPLs), the occupier is sometimes the former owner. When a real estate portfolio in Italy is sold unit by unit, occupied units follow a route of their own: the people who live in them come before listings and viewings.
What changes compared with a vacant unit
- Anyone who answers a listing needs to know. Otherwise they call about a unit they believe to be vacant.
- The people who live there come before the market. They must be told about the sale, and sometimes they are the first to be offered the unit.
- Every communication leaves a trace. The letter, the proof of delivery, the reply or the lack of one: all of them need to be kept.
- Vacating the unit is a negotiation in its own right. When the unit has to become vacant again, this is agreed with the occupier, sometimes with a sum of money paid in exchange for the keys: this is known as cash for keys.
The possible routes, unit by unit
For each occupied unit the seller chooses a route, and can change it if the response of the people living there changes.
- The sitting tenant buys. The sale starts with a letter offering the tenant the chance to buy: the reply decides whether the unit goes on the market. If the tenant buys with a mortgage, the application is followed within the deal, as for any buyer: see the article on buyers’ mortgages.
- The unit is vacated, then sold. Once vacant possession has been obtained, by agreement or through cash for keys, the unit follows the same route as vacant units.
- The occupier stays. The bare ownership (nuda proprietà) is sold and the occupier keeps the usufruct (usufrutto), that is, the right to live in the unit: the buyer obtains vacant possession when the usufruct ends.
Then there is the right of pre-emption (prelazione). In some cases, Italian law or the lease gives the tenant the right to be preferred, on equal terms, if the unit is sold. Where this right exists, the offer to the tenant and the reply follow set forms and time limits, which the seller handles with its lawyers.
How it is handled in EASYRE®
EASYRE® is software and service for selling or leasing a real estate portfolio in Italy unit by unit, through multiple brokers and estate agents. In EASYRE® every enquiry follows an event-based workflow: each step stays on record, and the events-by-user report shows who recorded what. For properties from non-performing loans there is a dedicated workflow, with the steps typical of occupied units:
- the strategy chosen for each unit: cash for keys, renegotiation, usufruct or sale;
- registered letters (raccomandate) and their proofs of delivery;
- arrears, that is, missed payments;
- vacating the property.
For everything else, occupied units have the same tools as any other unit: offers, including for bare ownership or usufruct; the approved price list (listino) next to the offer, preliminary contract and deed prices; and the documents linked to the unit. The price check and the anti-money laundering (AML) checks to sign off also apply, at the three steps of an Italian sale: offer (proposta), preliminary contract (compromesso) and notarial deed (rogito). How the checks sit inside the deal: Checks in the deal.
If you sell properties from non-performing loans, continue on the page for banks and credit servicers; if you sell the portfolio of a public body or a pension fund, on the page for public bodies and pension funds.