Ivan Nozzi, Ingegnere — a civil engineer in Abruzzo, Italy.

It depends on the work, not on which title sounds most impressive. A civil engineer registered in Section A may design, calculate structures, supervise works, prepare the measured cost schedule, file planning and cadastral applications, and check whether a property complies. An architect is required where the building is listed or the work has significant artistic character.

In everyday practice the three roles overlap a great deal, and a geometra — a surveying technician with a register of their own — handles many routine filings well. The useful dividing line is structural: once your project touches a floor slab, a load-bearing wall, an extension or the seismic behaviour of the building, the engineer's signature on the calculations is the part that carries weight.

I publish no rates, because a figure written before seeing the building is a figure that will change. Fees are built in one of two ways: a percentage of the value of the works for design, structural calculations and site supervision, or a fixed fee per filing, such as a CILA or a cadastral update.

On top of the fee come the 4% Inarcassa contribution and 22% VAT. Municipal charges, filing duties, stamp duties and any laboratory testing sit outside the fee and are paid to third parties. You receive a written proposal listing all of it before you commit, and turning it down costs you nothing.

The studio is in Torrevecchia Teatina, in the province of Chieti, and the usual working area runs from Chieti and Pescara down to the Adriatic coast and inland across the hill towns of the Chietino. For work that needs repeated site visits, travel time matters more than the provincial boundary.

Beyond that area I look at each request and say plainly whether it makes sense. For a single cadastral filing three hours away, a local technician will serve you faster and cost you less. I would rather tell you that than take the instruction and be slow with it.

An Italian notary verifies ownership, mortgages and charges, the formalities of the deed, and the consistency of the cadastral data stated in it. The notary does not walk through the house, measure rooms, or compare the building as it stands against the permits held at the comune. That comparison is a technical job, and it does not happen unless someone commissions it.

That is why discrepancies usually surface after the deed, at the point where the cost of putting them right — if they can be put right at all — is already yours. A technical check before the compromesso, the preliminary contract, moves that discovery to the moment when you can still renegotiate the price or walk away.

It starts with a message telling me where the property is, what stage you are at — an idea, an offer already accepted, works under way — and what is worrying you. If you hold the visura, the cadastral plan or old permits, attach them: a good number of questions are settled from documents alone.

I reply telling you whether the matter falls within what I can sign for, what I would do, in what order, and what it would cost. That first exchange exists to establish whether it is worth working together, and it commits you to nothing.