With thanks to Leslie Smith for her follow up on her journey – Please see the first instalment of her adventure here.

Following several attempts to buy a house in Portugal virtually due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, I was finally able to travel last fall. I thought I would be visiting my dream house in Sertã and signing the final purchase documents.

I had already met twice via video conference with the real estate agent and found her warm, helpful and accommodating.

The price had been negotiated down to a very reasonable one, Tom Jennings had given the house his usual thorough inspection, a builder had visited and costed out a reasonable estimate and renovation schedule. There was to be an adega, new bathrooms, a new kitchen and a salamandra or two to keep the well-built house cozy during the mountain winter.

The deal was about to move to the promessa stage, where I would provisionally agree to purchase the house and make a deposit to guarantee my intention. Thanks to the diligence of Seia lawyer Nuno de Almeida e Silva, several major problems were discovered and the deal was off.

The lawyer, using Google maps, was able to calculate that the actual square footage of the house was much larger than advertised. Normally, one might be happy about such a revelation but in this case, there were several unregistered additions to the property, which made them illegal. Representation would have to be made to the Câmara to have the registered area of the house amended and the additions legalized. At the very least, I was warned that I would have to pay back taxes on the additional square footage, which would have been accruing from the time of construction. Worse, the Câmara could order the additions to be torn down.

In the end, it was concluded that the house could not be offered for sale due to the unregistered structures and resulting paperwork nightmare — and the deal fell through. The house was withdrawn from the market.
The episode was a shock, because mentally, I had already moved in.

Such a mistake could have been picked up earlier had I been there and measured every room myself, then computed the square footage and compared it to the listing. However, the most valuable asset was my advogado, who checked the actual area of the house against the registered area. Had I signed the promessa I would have been committed to buying the house; backing out would mean losing my deposit and more.

My trip had already been booked to Portugal, so there was nothing left to do but regroup and
carry on.

I contacted José, a real estate agent from my previous story on purchasing a house virtually, and he gave me a few leads.

One was a house just outside of Viana do Castelo. I walked there on a hot day in early October, feeling every step of the 4 kilometres. Stopping at a lonely café, I asked the helpful owner for directions and eventually lugged my weary body up a steep hill to the house. Every neighbourhood dog, each on its own terrace, barked madly at me as I perused the house, which had a distant view of the sea. No way could I walk regularly into town on the busy roads. Back to the drawing board.

José thought he had lined up several other houses for me to see, but none were offered by his agency and the agents responsible for the listings were reluctant to have us visit since I was not one of their clients. Several properties had just been rented on long-term leases; others were unavailable for showing during my window of opportunity. José called me with the bad news that he had no houses to show me while I was touring the north. A few weeks later, he notified me he had found the perfect house in Darque, but by that time, I was in sunny Olhão.

I returned in mid-November to Azinhaga, birthplace of Portuguese writer José Saramago, where I had previously stayed with a friend while visiting the Golegã National Horse Fair, a not-to-be-missed experience. There, an agent showed me several extravagant houses far out of my price range. I couldn’t see myself living in any of them.

I continued to Vila Franca de Xira, a lively town on the banks of the Tejo. An old warehouse with an apartment above it right beside the local yacht club caught my eye. Though it was out of my price range, the agent and her husband were extremely accommodating and encouraged me to think about renovating the street-level warehouse area into a guest bedroom or stand-alone apartment. I could see myself kayaking down the river and jumping off the local dock in summer.

Out of an abundance of caution, I dropped by the Câmara to enquire further about the property.
”You mean this one?” the agente de atendimento ao cliente asked me. ”Sim, é isso” I responded. ”Do you not know that this property, and all the properties nearby, are under water during the seasonal high tides?”…I did not. She showed me a close-up photo of the property on her full-colour computer monitor and pointed out the special slots around the doorways for adding panels intended to block some of the Tejo floodwaters. I thanked the agente and ran away, fast, thanking my lucky stars for the Câmara and its helpful personnel, who were willing to advise ”uma estrangeira” against making a potential mistake. I was also glad I had invested time in learning Portuguese.

Either of the two circumstances described above could have occurred whether buying online or in person, but it was a forceful reminder of the need to check and double-check any and all information using all possible sources. Talk to neighbours, have a building inspection, get a builder to give an on-site estimate and by all means, visit the local Câmara for more information about any property under consideration.

By this time, temperatures had dropped, the dazzling Portuguese light had faded somewhat and every house was chilly inside. House-buying seemed a far less inviting pastime than it had earlier. I would soon be heading home for Christmas, and was thinking of roast turkey rather than leitão. House buying would have to be put on hold once again.

 

Sometimes, in my mind, I take a walk along the road to Sertã from ”my house in the hills” a few kilometres away. Other days, I mentally launch my kayak from my ”house on the banks of the Tejo”. One day I will find another house, but I don’t think the feeling will be quite the same.