What you see isn’t always what you get (when you buy property in Portugal)

This applies commonly in Portugal, when you purchase a property in rural areas.

People come many times to buy land, old houses or both altogether.

If you want to buy a property, you come, see one or more, find the right one, and fall in love with it.

And then you begin immediately to imagine what you could do to put it just like you want for your dreamed future.

And that’s ok.

Then you begin to negotiate the price, you can even reach an agreement, shake hands and that’s it.

Well, not quite.

You see, often land is wrongfully declared in public services, and the measures are not right. Sometimes the land is not even legally in the sellers name. Sometimes the area doesn’t allow to build. And so on.

With old buildings happens the same thing. You see a beautiful barn or a stone house, and you imagine how to transform it to your house, but you don’t know how it is registered, if it is legal, if you can enlarge it, or just rebuild or even if you can’t do anything with it.

All of this is not to worry of you have legal advice that can help you unveil the hidden problems that buying a property can have.

And the fact that the property is advertised in a real estate doesn’t give you that certainty. Many times even real estate agents are unaware of these problems, the owners are also unaware, and all of them are in good faith.

So, what to do?

You need legal advice to help you sort out all the challenges that you might face.

Many times, my clients come to me to do “just” a promissory contract, and find out thru me that there is a lot to be done for the purchase to be concluded.

And those are items that should go to a promissory contract. That´s why I say there is no “one size fits all promissory contract” that suits all situations.

Each property, or group of properties, has their own specific issues, that need to be negotiated with the seller on how to overcome and solve, and all of this should go to a promissory (the problems and the solutions).

Areas might need to me corrected, buildings might need to be registered and hole other issues might need to be cleared out in the contract, so they can be solved between the promissory and the title deed.

If you don’t do this, you might have a problem if anything goes wrong.

Think of a promissory contract like your car insurance: You don’t expect to have any car accident, but when you have it you are grateful you have an insurance.

So, what do you prefer: not have an insurance, and pay for the damages that might come along, or be safe and secure about everything.

Just give it a thought.

Nuno de Almeida e Silva

(Lawyer)

(Disclaimer: The information referred in this post is generic and cannot be considered has legal advice nor binds the author to any responsibility if anyone takes action upon it. Please, if you have any legal doubts our questions, contact a lawyer to analyze your case, and give you legal advice to your specific situation.)