Pilou

We just bought a house and it can be handy to see the costs directly related to the purchase of a house. In fact we did not know exactly, because it is not easy to find it on internet.

Here we go for a house bought in December 2017 (selling price EUR 115.000)

• Notary: EUR 500

• Lawyer EUR 800

So these addional costs directly related to the purchase (without a mortgage) is (only) 2.3% of the purchase price.

*The IMT is easy to calculate yourself. You can find "tables" on internet.

EMR

I was thinking of you today and your property search saga.
A Portuguese friend showed us two small houses he has overlooking the river at Portimao in a semi rural location.
're sale as a development project under 90,000 for both.
As we are finding out almost daily, local knowledge and contacts are everything when looking into the property market.

Pilou

Thanks for thinking of me!
We now bought a beautiful 180m² house (30 years old) with a nice architecture at only 10 meters from the shopping street with a garage for 3 cars. No traffic : dead end street! For us a garage is a must when living in a city! 3 balconies and 50m² terrace and a small outside space next to the kitchen at only 500 meters from the ribeirinha.
Love at first sight!

.

AliceCaroline

Local knowledge is very important in that case as the river back from Portimao can really stink. A kind of rank, muddy smell. If those houses are near the river it's probably why they are so cheap. The river through the town doesn't smell, it just seems to be the mud flats further out.

liveaboard

I presume all viewings of riverside properties are at high tide.

EMR

The infamous Portimao lpong downstream of the bridges It is hope will be less of a problem when the new water treatment plant opens.
It is not just about the mud flats but the discharges of poorly treated sewage from old plants.
Locals must be immune to it judging by the number of riverside properties on both banks.

Rambling archer

Is it necessary to have a property surveyed before purchase, and how would you organise this finding an impartial service,make it a condition of deposit? or is there a procedure already set up for this?
We have looked at many houses in Portugal and I don't feel confident in being able to discriminate between defects we have seen.
Any help grateful.

qianh

From my own experience, I don't think 'survey' in UK sense is common concept in Portugal and it's quite difficult to put it down as deposit condition. Usually if you are buying for renovating, you can go view the house with an engineer or builder, although there's a website of chartered surveyor online but I don't think it's much use (at least for me) to pick a surveyor at random. However there are quite a few property surveyor based in Algarve who can do British style survey, that's what I've done. I think it did give some sort of confidence in purchasing. Hope it helps.

Rambling archer

Thanks for your help, it could probably more difficult or unlikely in the centre of Portugal where we are looking, we will keep trying.

In love with forests

Is it true that IMT (paid to local councils) is being scrapped this year and replaced by stamp duty (paid directly to central government) ? I have just read an article about it online but can't find any other sources that back this up !?

EMR

There was talk about it years ago in the English language press but that was when a different government was in charge.

In love with forests

Ah ok, thanks. So why has the OP paid stamp duty as well?

EMR

That's the law, you pay both.