# Buying Land only



## isteve

I have trawled through this fantastic forum about Portugal and I am so grateful to the contributors for all their posts.

I found a lot of info on buying land in Portugal,with ups and downs the pitfalls and success stories.
One answer eludes me or what I did find out may not be up to date and thats, is it allowed for me to buy land, that can be given future habitat permission but does not have it yet, and place a static mobile home on it to use for holidays at various times of the year ?

Of course I am aware I will be "Roughing it" but in general can I relax in it knowing I won't get a council official knocking on my door demanding this or that document ?

Thank you


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## robc

isteve said:


> I have trawled through this fantastic forum about Portugal and I am so grateful to the contributors for all their posts.
> 
> I found a lot of info on buying land in Portugal,with ups and downs the pitfalls and success stories.
> One answer eludes me or what I did find out may not be up to date and thats, is it allowed for me to buy land, that can be given future habitat permission but does not have it yet, and place a static mobile home on it to use for holidays at various times of the year ?
> 
> Of course I am aware I will be "Roughing it" but in general can I relax in it knowing I won't get a council official knocking on my door demanding this or that document ?
> 
> Thank you


Hi Steve and welcome to the forum.

Short answers...................yes you can buy land as long as you satisfy some basic criteria........NIF number and the like.

Can you put a static on it.......................without a world of hassle..............No.

HTH

Rob


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## omostra06

Rob is correct, 
if you start to live in a caravan on your land you will get trouble from the council,(when they find out)
no matter what type of construction you live in, caravan, brick house wooden house etc, they all require planning permission to be lived in, obviously some structures will get permisssion and meet the required regulations easier than others.


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## PETERFC

*Reply*

Hi Steve

What Derek says is quite correct but i Know of someone who has had a Timber Frame house built on top of the bottom half of an old house. On Bommy night i went to a Bonfire night party at Dave's house. The thing you notice as you go in is that the house is so warm. Dave only has a very small log burner to heat the whole house. You need to post five times before the Private messaging start so rather than wait i have copied Dave's story from another Forum. I do know that Dave has had no problems from the local Camara as the house is considered only temporary as it has no purpose made foundations.

It's worth a looking into it may be of help.

Peter

Picasa Web Albums - agedhipy - House Build 

I'm Dave. An Aged Hippy who managed to pretend to be a successful I.T. consultant for much of my working life before I morphed into Mr Odd Job for three years before moving to Portugal. Nowadays I am much happier playing with lumps of wood than with computers, so no techie questions please.

In July 2008 I moved to Aveiro, just south of Porto from Southampton. It was never my intention to live in Aveiro for any length of time but I had a friend who works at the University and it was a good place to base my search for the right property. The move was prompted by the split from my partner of thirty years. We had got to the point where we wanted too many different things which were not compatible, like my desire to live abroad and her desire to be close to her grandchildren. The split was amicable and we are still great mates. Much better that we are good friends, than aggrieved partners. A long time ago I used to visit Portugal to visit my son who did much of his growing up on the Algarve. If the Algarve was still as it was then I might have been tempted to move there but I wanted something less spoiled and Central Portugal seemed to fit the bill.

The property hunt commenced and then was delayed by the financial crisis and then, significantly poorer than my original plans predicted, I started again. Eventually I found a wonderful location, a plot of 2000 plus square meters bordering on a river in the Gois/Lousa area, not far from Coimbra. It had a two room adega* (basement/cellar) covered by a concrete deck and at the back of the deck was a barbecue area which was open on one side but had a roof. I found the plot at the beginning of May and on the 26th of May I became the owner. The plot was more than I could afford and it left me with little money to do anything but erect a shack and even less to live on. It already had water, electric, a septic tank and the adega had a loo and a cold water shower. The location was to die for and I just had to have it. I had been told that the two rooms in the adega were dry but the first heavy rain proved that to be wrong so my original plan of living in the adega while working out what to do went out of the window. Plan B was to re-roof the BBQ area, enclose it with a timber fourth wall and live in that. My patch of paradise was at risk of becoming a nightmare but then I was introduced to Chris.

Chris is an English guy with years of experience in the construction of timber frame buildings and he is trying to introduce this building technique into Portugal. Very quickly it became apparent that using this technique I could just about afford to build something which would do the site justice.

What I am about to say next applies to my project only and is my understanding of Portuguese Law. Anybody else would have to do their own research before going down the route I have chosen. Under Portuguese law timber frame buildings can be classed as temporary structures and temporary structures are exempt from planning laws. This temporary structure ruling is regularly used by people to allow them to site yurts, caravans and log cabins on rustic ground where they would not otherwise be permitted to build and this appears to be tolerated. In my case I have put a temporary structure on an urban piece of land where I would be allowed to build a house. It is the Portuguese definition of temporary structure which makes a timber frame building "temporary" and not the method of construction, which has the potential to out last concrete build so common in Portugal.

Anyway, back to my build. Work started on site on the 13th of August and by mid September I had a weather-tight building in which to live. It is well insulated, draught and condensation free except for the aluminium doors which were my mistake. We then added a second phase to the build to incorporate the old BBQ area into the main building and such is the flexibility of the type of construction it was no problem.

The only delays we have had have been caused by slow delivery of materials and problems in sourcing the right materials. This is Chris's first build in Portugal so there was a learning curve but the build time was still a fraction of what it would have been by any other method and vastly less expensive.

It was my choice to clad the building in timber for two reasons. Firstly I thought it looked right for the location and secondly I wanted something that would be recognised as a "temporary" structure. The outside could just as easily have been brick, stone, or render and the appearance would have been that of any conventional house. There is no doubt that you have probably driven past other timber frame houses elsewhere in the world and not even realized.

There is virtually no concrete used in the build which greatly reduces it's environmental impact, it is well insulated which reduces the heating requirements and it has a thermal barrier in the roof to keep it cooler in the summer which I hope will avoid the need for air conditioning.

There a loads of photos of the build on Picasa Web Albums - agedhipy - House Build and I can be contacted at [email protected] if anyone has any questions.

The house isn't finished yet but that is no fault of the builders. They have done their bit and the rest is up to me. This has allowed me to keep the costs down.

I am greatly indebted to Chris (The Management), Robin (The Craftsman) and Torre (The Local Carpenter) who between them built my lovely house. 

Picasa Web Albums - agedhipy - House Build


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## canoeman

There is some danger to this approach, he might not have problems with his Camra, not all will see it the same way, essentially he's been able to sidestep planning and building regulations by

1. Building on an *Urban plot* not a *Rustic plot*
2. Using *existing foundations*.

As the house is not temporary but a permanent non movable entity does the house have any value? I would doubt it, which is fine as long as he lives there but a problem should he wish to sell or for his heirs.


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## omostra06

There is a bit of a myth around when it comes to rebuilding a ruined house, you cant just build up from a ruin without planning, regardless of the building materials used.
it has nothing to do with original foundations or permanent building, it has to do with a building that is intended to be lived / slept in.

all wooden houses will require planning permission, regardless of what foundations they are built on, in fact i think it would be harder to get permission to build onto a ruined wall / foundation than to apply to build new foundations.

some people do just go ahead and build without applying for permission and sometimes dont get problems from the council,(maybe because they are unaware of the build) but as has been mentioned, when it comes to selling the property / house, it will not be completely legal and therfore very hard to sell as most reputable agents just wont agree to market an illegal build.


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## PETERFC

*Reply*

Hi All 

About the property i mentioned.

I know this property very well and it's owner Dave. The house was built on top of an old house, a ring beam was created for stability. Then the Timber frame house was built on top. The local Camara are aware of this and i do know Dave has had no problems.

The local Camara where working with a Timber Frame company on a project that would have provided Jobs and also a training program for local young people. The Timber Frame company and the Camara couldn't agree to on all terms of the project and the project fell through. I also know well the owner of the Timber Frame company.

As regards selling the property that's something that i have no knowledge of so i can't speak about that point. 

Peter


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