1-euro house in Italy 2022. BBC ONE series My Italian job

They are located in towns/villages that are secluded, not easily accessible, and not in the most famous tourist circuits. Don’t expect €1 houses for sale in Montepulciano or Pienza or the like.
They are in total disrepair. Besides various admin fees, remodeling one of those old houses in disrepair requires major work and would cost about €1,000-€1,300 per square meter. A square meter is 10.76 square feet. So a small 2 bd apartment of 60sqmt would cost you €60,000-€80,000 to remodel, depending on what needs to be done. Given the fact they are not located in very active real estate markets, you would not be able to easily recoup the investment in an eventual sale. So if you do it, do it for your own enjoyment and pleasure not for investment.

Roberto: Thanks for the information. What about after renovations are completed? How expensive are property taxes? How does it work when you own an apartment in a multi unit building? Are there home owner’s fees paid by all?

La property tax is called IMU (imposta municipale propria) and it's calculated on the value of the property. If the property is the principal residence, then there is no property tax unless the property is classified as luxury building.
The base percentage is 0.76% of the cadastral value (value determined in the city records), but it varies depending on the municipality. Also the cadastral value doesn't really reflect the actual market value of the property, so the tax is not very high. For a property under 80,000€ in cadastral value you will pay less than 700€/yr. There is also another local tax (TASI) to pay for services like street maintenance, lights etc. which adds maybe another 200-300 euro/yr.
HOA fees applies to condominium buildings to pay for common areas maintenance etc. They are paid by all owners of the individual apartments based on share of ownership of the entire property. The percentage of ownership of each dwelling owner is based on 1,000ths.
So for example an entire condo building lets say with a value of Euro 1,000,000 is given a value of 1,000/1000ths. If your apartment has a value of Eur. 200,000, then you are owner of 200/1000ths and the HOA fees are allocated based on that fraction (basically in this example you will pay 1/5 of the total HOA costs). HOA fees vary greatly depending on the monthly expenses. Some may include centralized heating, or centralized water bill, others may have huge landscaping expenses if they sit in a large property etc. Many of those houses sold for 1 euro are not part of a condo, they are sort of townhomes or even single family homes not attached to other buildings, therefore HOA would not apply.

You provide very useful and detailed information. I'm surprised at the attention to detail. As for this project, a house for 1 euro, I understand that for most regions this is burying money in the ground. But it seems to me that when a city with such a program gets into a television project, demand grows and the price of real estate rises. The only thing that confuses me is the Italian bureaucracy. When I think about how many permits I need to start construction work in the historic center, I remember the phrase of the local guide: Why are there so many old ruined buildings in this city? They're just waiting 100 years for permission from the municipality to start renovating.

The recent series on Amazon Prime - James May: Our Man in Italy, has one episode (cant figure out which one, maybe the 2nd) in which they visit a One Euro Home for sale. I think it was in the south. It looks pretty grim. And the village it's in is pretty dead. There are a lot of strings attached including residency requirements..

My detail knowledge comes from owning property in Italy, including a very old one remodeled many years ago (I didn’t pay 1€ for it, I inherited it). Obtaining permits for major renovations takes time too, but the historical centers restrictions apply to the exteriors, not the interiors. But you still need need an architect, engineer, or geometra (surveyor who also prepare architectural projects) to submit the design to the city if it’s major work that require a change in the floor plan of record with the city. There are two permits to obtain, the SCIA and the CILA. The former is necessary before you can start the work. In Tuscany it takes a few weeks, but it depends on each municipality. Other places it might take longer, but if in a municipality takes many months, then I don’t want to live in that municipality, because it means nothing else works in that town,

Roberto: You should write a book for all the Under the Tuscan Sun fans who fantasize having a house in Italy. A reality check.

I found the region in which this series is filmed is the municipality of Salemi and although it does not look very much like a dying city, since it has about 10,000 inhabitants, there is a problem. As I read Salemi is in a seismically unstable area and the walls need to be strengthened. The very technology that is described on their website looks like I decided to build a bomb shelter. I'm sure it will cost a lot of money( : travelsalemi.com/we-strengthen-the-walls-of-the-house-what-is-sysmabonus/