Living in Bordighera: Buying a Home on the Italian Riviera

Bordighera is a town of about 10,200 people (ISTAT, 31 December 2024) between Sanremo and the French border. It is small, quiet and well kept, yet has everything for year-round living: shops, schools, a railway station and a motorway exit. British readers may know it already: Giovanni Ruffini's novel Doctor Antonio (1855) made it famous in Britain, and Victorian visitors left period villas, gardens, an Anglican church and the Bicknell Museum, founded by the English botanist Clarence Bicknell. In 1884 Claude Monet spent several months here and painted dozens of canvases.
Before you start viewing, one point matters: a purchase here follows Italian law, not English conveyancing. There is no solicitor-led chain and no exchange of contracts. The process is an offer, then a binding preliminary contract (compromesso) with a deposit, then the deed (rogito) signed before an Italian notary (notaio), a public official who acts for neither party and is not the equivalent of a solicitor.

The neighbourhoods

• Town centre and Via Vittorio Emanuele: the main shopping street, the station and beaches a few steps away. Flats in period and 1960s-70s buildings, good for living here all year.
• Seafront and Sant'Ampelio: sea-view homes a few metres from the beach, the area most holiday buyers ask for.
• Bordighera Alta: the old hilltop village, stone houses, lanes and terraces. Often in need of work; car access is limited.
• Sasso and the hills: Sasso is the small village on the hill behind the town; around it, villas and houses with gardens, more space and sea views, but you need a car.

Getting around
Bordighera station is on the Genoa–Ventimiglia line: Ventimiglia is about 10 minutes away by train, with connections to Menton, Monaco and Nice. Sanremo is about 20 minutes by car. Via the A10 motorway (Bordighera exit) the French border is about 20 minutes away, Menton a quarter of an hour and Nice airport about an hour.

Prices
Prices vary a lot by area: a seafront flat is a different market from a flat on the hill without a view. A public reference is the Property Market Observatory (OMI) of the Italian Revenue Agency, which publishes price ranges by district. These are averages; a viewing gives you a real figure.

What to check before buying (Italian law)

1. Landscape protection. Coastal land within 300 metres of the shoreline is protected by law (art. 142(1)(a), Legislative Decree 42/2004). There, and in other protected areas, works that change a building's exterior (verandas, windows, pools, extensions) need landscape authorisation (art. 146). Check before the compromesso if you plan works.
2. Planning and land-registry compliance. The deed must state that the property matches its land-registry (catasto) data and floor plan, or it is void (art. 29(1-bis), Law 52/1985). The visura catastale (land-registry extract) is the starting point; in period homes and the old village, unrecorded alterations are common, so get a building compliance report.
3. Condominium fees. The buyer is jointly liable with the seller for fees of the current and previous year (art. 63, implementing provisions of the Civil Code): ask for the payment status and any approved works.
4. Purchase taxes. Buying a second home from a private seller, registration tax is 9% of the taxable value; the reduced 2% “first home” rate requires moving your residence to Bordighera within 18 months (Presidential Decree 131/1986, Tariff part I, art. 1 and note II-bis). You will need an Italian tax code (codice fiscale).
5. Holiday lets. To let the home to tourists you need the national identification code (CIN), shown in every advert (art. 13-ter, Decree-Law 145/2023, converted by Law 191/2023).

Buying with Aquamarina in Bordighera
Our office is in the centre, at Via Vittorio Emanuele 302. Since 2003 we have helped Italian and international buyers from the first viewing to the deed: our technical partners check compliance and restrictions, we prepare the offer and the compromesso and we go with you to the notary. We speak English, French, Russian, German and Dutch.
Call +39 0184 26.16.87, email info@aquamarina.email or visit our offices in Bordighera (Via Vittorio Emanuele 302) or Sanremo (Via Roma 32).

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Read also: Apartments for sale in Bordighera · Villas for sale in Bordighera · Buying property in Liguria as a foreigner

This guide is for information only and does not replace advice from a notary, surveyor or tax adviser.