What buying a house on the lake costs, item by item

When a private individual sells, the sale is VAT-exempt and the buyer pays¹²:

• Registration tax (imposta di registro) 9%, or 2% for a first home (A/1, A/8, A/9 excluded), with a minimum of €1,000;
• mortgage tax (imposta ipotecaria) €50 and cadastral tax (imposta catastale) €50.

The price-value rule (prezzo-valore). Between private individuals, for homes and their appurtenances, the buyer can ask the notary for the tax base to be the cadastral value: cadastral income (rendita catastale) × 1.05 × 120 (second home) or × 110 (first home). The real price must still be written in the deed: concealing it costs a penalty of 50 to 100% of the difference¹. On a lake house the cadastral value is almost always much lower than the price, which is why the price-value rule weighs more than any other item.

The cadastral income is in the cadastral record: how to read it and why it is not the price is explained by the tool From cadastral value to market.

If the seller is a VAT-registered company (typically a builder, on a new or renovated house), the buyer pays VAT on the price: 4% first home, 10% other homes, 22% for categories A/1, A/8, A/9. Registration, mortgage and cadastral taxes become fixed, €200 each¹. The price-value rule does not apply here: you pay on the full price.

Notary. Professional tariffs were abolished by art. 9 of Decree-Law 1/2012: the fee is agreed and the notary must give a quote⁴. Under the customs of the province of Novara the costs of the contract are borne by the buyer, who chooses the notary³. We have no official source for a «typical» fee and we do not invent one.

Agency. In the province of Novara, where Orta San Giulio lies, the provincial collection of customs indicates, unless agreed otherwise, a commission of 3% for each party on the actual price³. It is a custom from 2005, not a legal cap; VAT at 22% is added. For the municipalities on the northern shore in the province of VCO (Omegna, Nonio, Quarna Sopra, Madonna del Sasso) we have not read the collection of customs.

Assumptions: price €600,000, private seller, buyer a private individual, no mortgage. For Italy a cadastral income is needed: we assume one of €2,000, which gives a cadastral value of €252,000 as a second home and €231,000 as a first home. It is not the cadastral income of a real house: yours is in the cadastral record, and it changes everything.

What the table says: under the price-value rule the Italian tax on a second home is 3.8% of the price, less than the Austrian tax (4.6%), because it is calculated on a cadastral value much lower than the price. Without the assumption on the cadastral income the comparison does not hold: with a cadastral income of €4,000 the registration tax doubles.

In Austria the known bill is increased by the lawyer or notary who draws up the contract: the official source speaks of about 1–3% of the price⁶, that is between €6,000 and €18,000 on this house. We do not add it because it is a range, not a tariff.

To redo the sums with your own figures there is the tool Purchase costs compared.

According to the official portal oesterreich.gv.at (updated 1 August 2026)⁶:

• Grunderwerbsteuer (purchase tax) 3.5% of the price;
• entry in the land register (Eintragungsgebühr) 1.1% of the price, plus a filing fee of €85; if there is a mortgage, registering it costs 1.2% of its value;
• maximum commission of the agent, for prices above €48,448.52, 3% plus VAT at 20%;
• lawyer or notary: about 1–3% of the price, according to the tariffs of the respective chambers.

We have not read the rules for foreign buyers in Austria (the Länder's land transfer laws).

The federal law on purchase tax sets the rate at 3.5% (§ 11 GrEStG)⁷. According to secondary sources, since 2006 the Länder can set their own rate; Bavaria still applies 3.5% and North Rhine-Westphalia 6.5% since 2015⁸⁹. We have not read the laws of the individual Länder: this is why Germany stays «being checked» in the table.

We have not recalculated notary, land register and commission in Germany from a source for this edition: this is why the German row in the table has no total.

In Switzerland transfer taxes and fees are cantonal, and sometimes municipal. One example read at the source: in Ticino the law on land register tariffs applies to the registration of a transfer for consideration a fee of 11 per thousand of the value (art. 11 LTRF)¹⁰, that is 1.1%.

We cannot say, from a primary source, which other taxes or notary fees are added in Ticino, nor what a purchase in Zurich or Bern costs: Switzerland stays «being checked». Foreigners buying in Switzerland are also subject to a federal law restricting purchases by persons abroad, which we have not read here.

In Orta San Giulio, for 2026, IMU (municipal property tax) on «other buildings», that is second homes, is 0.96%; for a main residence in the luxury categories A/1, A/8, A/9 it is 0.55%; for free loan to first-degree relatives 0.56% (Municipal Council resolution no. 37 of 23 December 2025, MEF schedule)⁵.

The rate applies to the IMU tax base, calculated from the cadastral income with its own coefficients, which we have not reread here: this is why we do not give an annual amount for the example.

If the house is let, the taxes on rents are in the guide Renting out your lake home.