What I wish I’d known when buying my first place in Portugal

What I wish I’d known when buying my first place in Portugal…

I know a lot of people here are currently looking for property in Portugal and I thought this may be a helpful post for some of you.

I wish I’d known…

• That unless you see with your own eyes the certificate that a property has a habitation licence, even if the owner, estate agent, lawyer or council say it does it probably does not!
• Do not believe people that tell you it’s easy to get a habitation licence, it is not and it’s getter harder all the time.
• If someone tells you a property does not need a habitation licence for whatever reason then they should still be able to provide to you easily an ‘exemption of habitation licence’ certificate from the local council.  If they cannot supply this then this probably means the property is not exempt and you cannot legally live in it.
• If you live on land without a habitation licence you can only do so if you live in a structure that can be moved easily (caravan etc) and not full time.  You are still only allowed to live on land without habitation licences if you can show you are looking after the land and it’s livestock, but even then it cannot be full-time.
• A property being pre 1951 does not mean you’ll be legally ever allowed to live or renovate it.
• Get things in writing from any of the above people, because even in the council, one person will tell you one thing and the next time someone else will say the opposite.
• Getting any kind of paperwork from officials can take a VERY long time.
• There is a large amount of nature reserves, I recommend you check if the property you like is in one, because even with a habitation licence what you can do on the land (even down to planting trees and gardens etc) will be hugely impacted by this.
• This is also the same with fire zones, so you can check this with the council about both at the same time.
• If you buy somewhere without habitation and try claim expenses back against renovating it, you cannot.
• Look for somewhere with several water sources, it may look like you have a lot of water on the land but come the summer they could all dry out.
• The best time to view for this reason and fires etc is at the end of summer.
• Remember with a big land you have to legally keep it clean/fire safe, so this can be A LOT of work doing this every spring.
• Living a part of a community sounds wonderful I know, but trust me unless everyone pulls their weight and has exactly the same views about everything it becomes a strain very quickly!

These are many of the ways I have been caught out here in Portugal as I did not make myself aware of the above and believed the officials when they told me things.  I hope in sharing this it does not put anyone off buying as the country really is such a beautiful special, natural, free and friendly, place to live and I would not want to live anywhere else.  I just thought I would share these thoughts with you, so you don’t get caught out like I did (I am now on property number three ha).