Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

Hello, we're considering selling our village house in the mountains and moving down to the Alentejo. We've found a large quinta with land in the Alentejo which looks beautiful in the advert.
The only issue: it does not have a habitation licence or Licença de habitação.
The advert optimistically says this could be approved in one month.

I don't know enough about habitation licences. The building is 9 years old.
So many questions come out of this. I've searched forums and not found out much information, only in Portuguese which it has taken time to translate.

Do any of you have experience of this? Is it a minor technicality, or a really dodgy thing to even considering buying? We're at the planning stages so we haven't viewed the property and not spoken to our lawyer, but I'm trying to draw up a list of potentials. This is not the only property without a licence.

Thanks in advance for your full and frank responses!

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

You wouldn't be able to complete the purchase without it.

Actually, I thought there was some legislation in place which says that all properties offered for sale must already have the required documentation pronto, although perhaps that's limited to those offered for sale through estate agents. I'll have a rummage later to see if I can get to the bottom of that, if nobody else can supply the lowdown on it in the meantime.

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole - if the habitation license were easy to get they would have got it.

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

Agree and doesn't everyone want to get the maximum selling price. If it was so easy for them to get, that little bit of money would have been well spent. If it's not the seller trying to make money, it's the estate agents and lawyers who will happily take your money. You could also ask the townhall planning department directly, before paying the lawyer fees. I've seen even worse in Spain recently and a local estate agent had a bargain property for sale. The small print readTHE AVAILABILITY OF ACCESS TO THE PROPERTY IS NOT GUARANTEED, IT MAY BE OCCUPIED BY THIRD PARTIES WITHOUT TITLE

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

Is it being sold privately or via an Estate Agent? Estate Agent is worth communicating with first (private sale - don't touch it ... ) and ask what commitment or complication there is? They will have more info about it than they would have put in the advert. For instance our property (not a quinta which might come with its own complications) did not have a HabitLice as 30 years ago it was sort of glossed over and though built with all approvals via the Camara the HabitLice was never applied for ... our Lawyer put in the proviso in the promissary contract that it was dependant on the seller obtaining the HabitLice from the Camara and it was indeed done fairly quickly, otherwise they would have reneged on the promissary and we would have got our deposit back.
However it does seem a bit strange on a building from only 9 years ago ... the local Camara should have records of the planning permission for the construction and your lawyer can take it from there as to whether legal, agricultural, bona-fide or other! So ask the questions, and prepare a fall-back listing of other properties too!

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

Not an expert by any means but the estate agent we are currently selling through (and another we tried) would not even list ours until we had a current Caderneta (spelling), Energy Certificate, Ficha Technical and Habitation Licence.

As I say I am no expert but it would appear these are the documents needed to sell.

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

Tell them that's great, see you in a month if I don't buy something else first.

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

It's listed by three different estate agencies.

I think what you've suggested about the lawyer putting in a proviso that the seller must obtain the habitation licence is great.

Re: Quinta for sale ... but with no habitation licence
 

Thanks everyone for your advice. We have some due diligence to carry out. I will be contacting the council and the estate agencies and of course insisting with my lawyer that if we proceed, there is an agreement in place whereby the seller must obtain the habitation licence first otherwise we will not proceed and our deposit will be repaid.