Italian police "rental control" questioning?

[chachalaca]

We're past the 1/2 way mark in our summer trip with our nephew. We just left Italy yesterday and are in France for the remainder of the trip.

Have any of you been quesioned by local police while staying in a rental? Wednesday night, while having a late dinner (9:00pm, getting dark) in our LEGAL village rental(a small village outside of Torino with very few tourists) the local police stopped by the ask a few questions. They only spoke Italian. With my Spanish and French I was able to piece together what they were saying, that this was "normal" and could they see our passports. Also, they wanted to see any info received from the owners confirming our stay and rental amount.

They decided they needed copies of everything and said they'd only be gone 5 min. I was not about to send off all three passports, and said I would accompany them. (I wasn't nervous, but in 10 yrs of renting in France nothing like this has ever occurred). So, off I went, my first police car ride ever!

At the station the 5 min turned into 30 (slow copy skills by the other policeman?) while I was shown photos of the rental and asked questions like Is this where you're staying? Is this the kitchen? Is this the bath? Etc. AND Did you find it on this rental site? This one? This one? how then? How much did you pay? How? To whom? When? But remember I ASKED to go with them and if I hadn't perhaps they wouldn't have asked any of those questions???..and there were other questions along the same lines.

While I was "gone" my husband called the owners and the Italian husband arrived just moments after I walked back in the door. They said this has never happened and made their own visit to the police station to investigate the experience. They were not happy with this event at all.

So, is this common in Italy? Your thoughts? Perhaps the recent terrorist activities are perpetuating these kinds of inquiries?

Laura

 

[chiaro di Luna]

No, I've never heard of this. I've always had my passport taken at hotel or apartment check in, to be given back to me within an hour. You were brave to go with the police by yourself! Did the rental owners fill you in afterwards?

 

[Pauline]

This has never happened to me and I have never heard of this. I have heard of police checking to see if you have a receipt when leaving a shop. It must be for the same reason - to see if a business is avoiding paying taxes. But really! What a thing to do to a visitor!

 

[chachalaca]

Chiaro, I'm not sure I was brave...maybe I should've said I'd come up in the a.m. It seems like I was stupid, in retrospect. But when I told them, I didn't feel comfortable sending the passports off, they said "the boy could come with them". Said 'boy' is my nephew and I wasn't about to let THAT happen!

Friday when we checked out the owner told us that her husband, an Italian, had complained to the police. But no more information. They were upset on our behalf, for sure, though.

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

Wow!! I've never heard of such a thing. It's hard to know what to do in such a situation. Can't believe they would expect your nephew to go to police station. this incident sounds totally bizarre. I wonder if there was a complaint lodged against the owners or something and they were following up.

 

[Shannon]

How scary. I have never heard about anything like this happening. Did the owners take your passport numbers when you checked in? They are suppose to, but sometimes apartment owners don't do it.

If you get any more info from the owners as to why they did this, would you post it here?

 

[chachalaca]

The owner was very thorough, took all our passport numbers, home details, etc. and told us she had to register (or something) them.

Yes, if I receive any more info I'll post.

 

[itarchivarius]

No, it is not a frequent experience, but the first step to understand what happened would be knowing which kind of police did the inquiry.

CARABINIERI have no reason to deal with home rentals unless a crime was committed on the premises or a complain filed by somebody.

POLIZIA should receive a registration notice within 48 hours when an accommodation is rented to anybody not in the family of the owner. This is why hotels ask for your passport and home rentals should also. What are they doing with all these reports, it is anybody's guess. My guess is that do not even read them and they file the reports till the end of the space. Apart from this, they do not deal with rentals.

GUARDIA DI FINANZA should be concerned if the rental contract is duly registered with tax authorities (usually not a deal with tourist home rentals as only long term contracts need a registration). They may be concerned also about taxes being paid or not on any revenue. For example, they may have noted a discrepancy between income reported and bank accounts and trying to understand if everything has been reported.

POLIZIA MUNICIPALE or VIGILI URBANI or POLIZIA LOCALE (three names for the same thing) should be concerned with zoning laws, getting or not the correct authorizations, paying or not local taxes. For example, if the municipality has a tourist tax on rentals, they may check if it was duly paid by owners. Or maybe an apartment may be registered as an office and let out as a residence (more common than you think, as it is a way to dodge some building requisites, but a serious infraction to zoning laws).

 

[Parigi]

O my goodness ! What an experience. Sounds as though someone had a beef against your landlord and made a complaint to make trouble for him.
Was the rest of the stay ok ? Was the owner a nice and responsible person ?

 

[chachalaca]

Well, it was the Carabinieri. I have no idea about a crime committed on the property or whether a complaint was filed. The owner copied our passport numbers and told us she had to submit them to the local authorities; so I know she's a rule follower. We received a receipt when we arrived and paid, and another one at the end of our stay with a really fancy official stamp/sticker on it.

Parigi might be right, perhaps someone has a beef against the landlord. The house has been in their family for generations and they've been renting it for a few years. The landlords were great! My husband called them while I left with the officers (and passports!) and the wife was very upset. They live in another city, but her husband was near the village and came right away, first to the police station (which was empty because they were bringing me home) and then to the rental house. They apologized profusely, but really I don't see how this was their fault any how. They called the next day to see if I was okay and the husband filed a complaint the next day at the police station.

I just found the entire situation odd and wondered if those of you who've traveled in Italy have experienced this or heard of it or could surmise the reason behind it.

 

[toscoman]

I'm surprised it was the caribinieri (especially since they are not allowed to leave their office empty for any reason during official hours). It should have been the Vigili or the Guardia di Finanza. If the vigili, it would be the local municipality (comune) checking to see that everything was legit in terms of tourist tax, space provided, amount charged etc. You can expect more and more of this as the municipalities crack down on black and grey agriturismo operators, of whom there are huge numbers (more than half, at a guess). If it was the Guardia di Finanza, they would be checking for tax evasion and concerned mostly with the exact amount that you paid and how. The questions about number of rooms etc. strongly suggests the municipality.

 

[chachalaca]

It WAS the caribinieri, the car was labeled as was the office. They probably were allowed to leave the office because it was 9:45 PM which possibly is not official hours. It was a very small village, perhaps they were working on behalf of the municipality.