I’VE BOUGHT A €1 HOME IN SICILY – IT’S CHEAPER AND FEELS SAFER THAN BRITAIN

A woman who has lived in Scotland for the past 14 years says she has bought a €1 home in Italy because the country feels safer and less expensive than Britain.

Kaja Oledzka, 33, who moved to Edinburgh from Poland 14 years ago, says she has noticed a change for the worse in the UK since the Brexit vote in 2016, including a higher cost of living and rising anti-immigration sentiment.

As a result, she and her husband decided to buy a home abroad for them and their daughter, Ava, five.

They chose a home going for €1 (86p) in Sicily, selecting an authentic and traditional city in the middle of the island.

“Post-Brexit, I felt the UK had become more uncertain and tense, so I wanted to create a safe place for myself and my family abroad,” Mrs Oledzka, a singer-songwriter, told The i Paper.

“After Brexit, the UK feels less open and life has become more expensive. That was another push for me to look to Europe for opportunities.”

She came across the €1 house project through research into creative, affordable ways of living in southern Europe.

Italy’s €1 homes scheme offers abandoned or neglected properties in small towns and villages suffering from depopulation for the symbolic price of just €1. 

Usually, the homes are sold or auctioned by local municipalities as empty properties in need of restyles, but Mrs Oledzka got in touch with a local private agency (Vero Affare), which handles €1 home sales on behalf of local families who want to dispose of their abandoned properties.

Mrs Oledzka said that for her, Sicily stood out because it offered all the ingredients for a happy life – from safety, sunshine and natural beauty to history, a slower pace of life and sense of community. She also appreciated the easy availability of fresh, locally sourced produce, a contrast to the dominance of processed food on offer in Scottish supermarkets.

She found an available property in the central Sicilian village of Caltanissetta, which appealed to her because it was authentic, not too touristy, and had a strong community feeling.

“Caltanissetta is not the most famous city, but that makes it all the more authentic. It feels like the right place to grow something new,” she said.

She bought a flat in the city’s old Arab district with vaulted ceilings and two balconies overlooking a historic piazza, right next door to the main cathedral.

Despite being small – about 35 square metres – and in need of renovation, the apartment is located on the first floor of a historic building and has two entrances on the landing.

“It needs restoration, but it has charm,” she said. “My goal is to keep the budget at around €10,000, doing much of the DIY myself. I’ll hire professionals for wiring and plumbing, but I’m hands-on in all other areas. I’ve started sourcing materials already.”

Mrs Oledzka says they now plan to spend part of the year in their new home, while keeping a base in Scotland.

For her and for many immigrants in Britain, the country no longer felt the same. She said that since Brexit, many Europeans who lived and worked in Scotland had returned to their home countries.

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She added that politicians like Nigel Farage and others in his Reform Party were fostering an atmosphere in which racism and social tension were rising, as evidenced recently in protests and riots outside hotels being used to house asylum seekers.

“My own family has felt this change firsthand: in 2022, my husband was physically attacked. Since then, racist riots have broken out across the country and continue even now, leaving many, both migrants and locals, afraid to leave their homes.

“People have been led to believe that asylum seekers are to blame for the country’s problems, when in reality the UK’s financial decline began with Brexit.”

But looking to her new life in Sicily, Mrs Oledzka is full of hope. She has aspirations to move to her new house permanently in a few years.

She says she would like to connect with the Sicilian music scene, potentially performing and collaborating locally.

2025-09-13T05:46:00Z