Artfuldodger128

I've recently signed the promissory contract for an apartment purchase with the deed date signing coming very soon.

Once I've the keys, is there a legal obligation for me to buy home insurance? If so, what is the minimum cover required?

Note the property I'm buying is an apartment, and given I'll be a part owner of the building block (I understand in Portugal there are no leaseholders: every homeowner is a freeholder) will I need to buy building insurance too?

Dafty

There is very often an Owners Association when there are multiple owners of a residential building or complex . If this is the case, individual owners are obliged to pay an agreed annual fee to the Association in order to cover general maintainance costs.This contribution normally includes buildings insurance cover for the entire property.
Although not mandatory, personal household contents cover is wise.
Check with the neighbours re. Association details.

GrahamF

Our association has a policy covering the building which IIRC is about €55 p.a. each apartment but we also took out our own policy for our liability in the case we had burst water pipe, fire etc..

Fluffyhead

We used to own an apartment in Lisbon and every year we had to prove we had buildings insurance.

chislenko

We have gone down this same route.

sportpix

A friend of mine told me I needed fire insurance, which coincided with me changing banks from Millennium to Santander. My Santander account includes the home insurance but I can't remember the actual cost per month, except that it didn't sound all that much at the time given the value of the property.

macliam

My apartment in the Algarve is in a small condominium (six apartments and two commercial properties). On purchase, we were required to join the condominium, so it is not a voluntary action, although it is ultimately controlled by the owners - and run according to Portuguese constitutional law, which crystallised requirements to protect owners interests in such commonly owned properties (my wife remembers the situation under the Estado Novo, where each householder was responsible to undertake cleaning, etc. on an agreed rota and where it was common for them to employ others to actually do the work).

Currently, our condominium is managed by a specialist local company, who are also insurance agents. We pay a small monthly fee (currently €21 for us) to cover cleaning of the common areas, a limited block insurance, a small floating fund and their management levy. This fee varies by the size of property owned (fracção) and is agreed in advance in a group meeting, chaired by the management company. Other costs, such as block redecoration, etc., are equally agreed in advance at a group meeting, divided by the "fracção" owned and over agreed instalments and collected by the management company.

However, in addition, it is a rule of our condominium that each owner must have insurance on their properties, which must at least cover third-party liability to cover damage to other properties resulting from issues in the owned apartment. Obviously, it is also recommended that this insurance be extended to cover risks to the property itself and to contents, but only the basic third-party insurance is mandated. Since the management company are also insurance agents, it is in their interests to upsell, but the choice of insurance company used and the level of cover selected is up to the individual owner.

I would suggest that you find out how your block is managed (I am surprised you have not been made aware of this before signing any contract) and speak to the managers about the requirements and costs of ownership. Unfortunately, I think your scope of action will already be constrained by the fact you have signed the contrato de compra e venda - but at least you will be able to ensure that your completion on the property advances without issue. The requirements upon you as an owner and the costs involved will have been fixed by the previous owners, but you will have the ability to vary these in future (with agreement from the other owners). This may sound like an imposition, but it is unlikely to be an extortionate cost as the process of block management is strictly controlled by law - what will vary is the level of involvement/decor/cleaning/other services agreed by the owners collectively and the management fee levied. I am fairly happy with our condominium, since they even forced the previous owners to pay a proportion of redecoration fees agreed before we bought, rather than leave us liable for the whole amount.

Good luck.

Alan PT

Incidentally, on the insurance theme, the only insurer I found in PT which is similar to the host of UK online direct insurers is https://www.logo.pt/

A lot of people here still use brokers (even colleagues in their 20's who work in digital!)