two very happy "Italian residents" wearing local Sicilian facemasks

After what seems like an eternity, finally on the 21st September we received a phone call from the administration department in Ragusa to advise us that tomorrow 22nd September we should expect a visit from the local authority to check out our place of residence here in Marina di Ragusa.

He arrived promptly and quickly went about completing the relevant paperwork. It was really just a case of confirming our boat name, berth number and checking our passports before he handed over a document confirming that we were now officially residents of the Municipality of Ragusa.

For a lot of residents this piece of paper is sufficient but because we want to continue to travel around Europe and return to the UK the Embassy and Immigration Authority recommended that we should obtain a "Certificato di Residenza", an "Attestazione di Iscrizione Anagrafica" and an "Carta di Identita" for each of us.

This meant another visit to the local municipality where the lovely ladies were soon on the case after we'd presented them with our signed document.

Surprisingly a short while later having signed a few extra documents and handed over more €16 Marca da Bollos (stamps), we walked away with our Certificato di Residenza, Attestazione and set the wheels in motion for our ID cards which we picked up a week later.

At the time it was our understanding that we had everything we needed until we started to read and understand that there were two Attestaziones required both identically named but with different wording. We specifically needed the one that referred to article 18.4 of the withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU which protects a lot of our current rights.

Obtaining this additional Attestazione was not easy and required another four visits to our local Comune and one to the main Comune in Ragusa as well as an email to Immigration in Rome.


our new documents

Finally, today 18th November 2020 we have walked away with the new Attestazione referring to article 18.4 of the withdrawal agreement. Now we believe we have all the necessary residency paperwork ready for next year.

Hurray!