Buying process in Portugal

Published on 3rd September, 2018

With the holiday season in full swing, you may be thinking about investing in your own holiday home in Portugal. So what other financial considerations do you need to be aware of, apart from the cost of the property, when buying in Portugal?

Basically, the buying costs work out to be a percentage of the property price. With a property priced at €350,000 you should be budgeting 7.6% in addition to the price of the property - this includes transfer taxes, lawyers’ fees, notary and registration fees and the stamp duty.

The buying procedure is normally done in 3 stages - Reservation, Promissory and Final Deed. On average this can take between 1 and 3 months in total.

With the Reservation, once you have found your dream home in the sun and agreed a price both parties are happy with, you will be asked to put down a reservation fee of around €6,000 - €10,000. This is fully re-fundable and stays in your lawyer’s account, not with the vendor.
 
The reservation shows the vendor that you are serious about the purchase and they will normally agree to remove the property from the market for 2-4 weeks so that the lawyers can carry out legal checks on the property - documentation etc…

The second stage is the Promissory Contract - this is the first legal contract signing.  At this point, the purchase/sale is legally binding for both parties. A 20% - 30

Published in: Business / News and Updates / Portugal Property / Property / Property for sale in Portugal