# Moving to Portugal



## Preecesfp (Jul 22, 2012)

Hi,

I'm in the "very" early stages of planning my move to Portugal, I expect to move in just under 5 years when the children are of a certain age.

I'm still undecided as to where in Portugal or what, I'm not sure if a piece of land and starting from scratch is right?

Any information would be greatly received.

Many Thanks
Stephen


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## jerryceltner (May 15, 2012)

Hi Steven,
We live in central Portugal and have two friends who have embarked on the build your own villa idea. 
The first one’s is almost finished and the second one’s has recently started.
Our friend who’s villa is almost finished would never do it again. He does not speak Portuguese and relied on the constructor to sort out all the legislation needed to build his dream villa.
The second friend has all this to come.
You will need land with or apply for a habitation licence, architect, solicitor, know all legislation, and a place to live while all this is done.
You will find that the quote that was given will increase because you will want to add things during construction. You will find that you incur fines if you are not careful during construction as my friend did because his outer wall was 2” to high. Add to this all the stress incurred.
Find a villa within your means and enjoy Portugal as I have but what do I know!!!!!!


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

As Jerry says building is not for the faint hearted unless you have really specific requirements.

With current market and within the reasonable future then you'll get far more for your money buying a property and save yourself about 2 years


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## Preecesfp (Jul 22, 2012)

Whether I'm right or not I'm not sure, but my initial plan was to buy some land, preferably with a house / ruin of a decent size in the next year or 2 for maybe £15,000 with land that can be worked. Then do the basics myself and bring in some builders (Polish) to do the main work.

Part of my background is in project management so when I get to that stage, I'm hoping I will do it myself. I also speak some Portuguese and plan to become fluent before any of the above 

At the end of 5 years, I will sell my house in the UK and move into my already built house, fingers crossed.

I also have a disabled son who unfortunately will not get better, here in the UK I receive benefits for him as someone needs to remain at home, do you know anything about this in Portugal?

Thanks Again
Stephen


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Build your own house or rebuild you *cannot *do it in Portugal, once plans etc passed and permission given to build the actual Licence can only be used by a correctly registered builder with the required licences, insurance and plant, which have to be presented and approved before Licence issued and bringing workers in forget it. Sorry but even with today's market problems £15,000 is an unrealistic figure. 

Information on Portuguese Social security site Segurana Social, you should also check UK as some benifits are transferrable or rather can still be paid.


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## jerryceltner (May 15, 2012)

You may wish to have a read on disability payments abroad I have included the link.
Disability : Directgov - Money, tax and benefits
I may add that when we moved over here my daughter was 11 and our child benifit was stopped. I tried to get it back but to no avail.


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## Preecesfp (Jul 22, 2012)

I'm very confused as I seem to be getting conflicting stories.

I was previosly informed that if you bought land and it had a building on it already, then there will be no problem with renovating that and obtaining permission.

I'm looking on a number of websites and I've seen approx 100 pieces of land / property well within my budget.

So all builders in Portugal are Portuguese? Is not a matter of registering?

Can I also ask, what is your perception of the job situation in the UK?

Thanks for your feedback thus far, this is exactly what I need.

Stephen


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Wish that was totally true, but it's not, renovation and whether you need a full project and planning permission depends on the state of the building and it's designation, you have to be extremely careful if you intend to do renovation yourself, that you would not need to make any formal requests, and that it has required pre 1951 habitation licence, anything that requires plans and building permission from Camara must comply with current building codes and a Registered builder. 

You might find plenty on internet that might be within your budget, but in reality I think you'll find very different and need very careful checking.

No it's not that all builders are Portuguese but a builder has to registered with INCIHome there are different types of licences for different levels of building. Registering is not just going a filling a form and would reguire you to be a Resident something that isn't in your plans yet.

UK job perception no idea apart from what I read or see on news, but bringing in foreign workers will cause you nothing but problems.


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

Canoeman pretty much knows these things backwards, forwards and sideways but FWIW, I'm in figueiro Dos Vinhos and have fairly recently moved into our house here and am currently looking at another (riverside) ruin that we might do a slow restoration on whilst we stay in our current home. 

As part of that we had a meeting at the house with the planning guy from the camra...... he told us that we can do the restoration with fairly simple planning permission IF (note the big IF) we stay within the original footprint and all materials used are similar to the originals..... ie, if it had wooden floors we'd have to have the same but if we changed from the original and for example installed a concrete floor instead of a wood one, we'd need a different type of planning permission that was more expensive and took a lot longer to get.

Regarding prices: We looked for about 9 months and I'd be very surprised if you can buy anything viable for E15K in central Portugal, let alone in the Algarve.

you might be looking at plots/ruins that look good at first but turn out to be non starters for a variety of reasons..... and a lot of PT estate agents seem to be keen on trying to offload those to unsuspecting ex pat buyers...... good luck with it though.
The good news is you'll get plenty of top quality advice from this forum! - I'd have lost without the help I've found and am still finding here.


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## Preecesfp (Jul 22, 2012)

Thanks again for the info, it certainly does seem that I may have to rethink my "entire" strategy and maybe even country, but, it's better to hear this now rather than later.


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

Don't be put off completely......Property in Portugal, esp central Portugal can be quite cheap but you need to be very careful about that you buy, where you buy and what needs doing...... and equally importantly, don't waste your time and money looking at the non starters a lot of agents will try to foist onto you.

For example, there's tons of stunningly beautiful lakeside plots on offer for a song and not much more but unless you want to live in a yurt or similar, you might as well forget them because you sure as hell won't get permission to build anything there.....


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

I'd agree with travelling-man and also a lot safer from a buying prospective if you do the checks.


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## robc (Jul 17, 2008)

canoeman said:


> I'd agree with travelling-man and also a lot safer from a buying prospective if you do the checks.


I would go with Canoe and Travelling on this one. 

Having built our own house in Central PT (when I say built, I mean arranged the whole thing but not doing the work) then you need to be 100% certain of the scale of the likely pitfalls before committing to a project here.

We had a Portuguese Builder, whom I cannot speak of highly enough, plus a Portuguese (local) Architect and even still managed to have problems with the local Camra.

Stick at it though, it is, believe me, well worth it in the end. 
Oh and by the way it took us five and a half years and we had no ruin to contend with.

You know where I am if I can help further

Rob


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## donovan (Apr 18, 2012)

You have been given some very good advice another thing you do not want do is to fall foul of any rules or regulations. You will find there are usually fines attached those days of when you could get away with many things has passed.


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