So what's happening...

I guess we're in limbo right now, plotting and planning things we want to do with the house, that new kitchen I have never had and like wise new (indoor) bathroom, more of a very stylish wet room really and the out door bathroom, shower with a slightly sunken pool/bath built in a garden setting, possibly Moorish in style. Ideas galore for the landscaping of the 'field',the yurts and facilities, ideas for outdoor kitchens, planting fruit trees. Deciding what goes where, which bedroom to have.
I have (I think) decided on which kitchen I would like, we have decided that after a month of settling in (could be less) that we will repaint the house exterior, I'm toying with the idea of painting the shutters blue, then a repainting of the interior. We have to find a way into the roof space to see if it is insulated, where the wiring is (I need lots of sockets in the new kitchen). What solar power too, we know we want a water system but how much energy will we get off solar panels? Is it worth the outlay? What is the outlay? Can we get a grant? The front edge of the veranda will be a herb garden, the fence will be planted with climbing flowers, vines and vegetables. The veranda it's self will be adorned with wind chimes and hanging fish and guarded by Gabriel.
Veranda

Fish

Gabriel

As you can see I have ideas for making things attractive thank goodness Phil has more of a leaning toward the practical details ~grins~.
So much to do before we can go, lots of things to arrange, a van for moving the household stuff that Hazel is having, a carrier to take our stuff to Portugal and possibly my car too (does it stay or does it go), an exit strategy for the house, cleaning, carpets cleaned etc, sorting through clothes do I need or do I get rid of... I'm sure I'll get brain ache at some point!

It's official...

I'm bad at blogging! And I now, officially own a house in Portugal!

I promise to try and be better! So November 12th arrived and we drove down to Odemira from Alvor, admittedly slightly hungover due to late flight and being a bit hyped. We arrived at the allotted cafe and true to his word (which we never doubted), Tom met us at 11 pm, we sat and drank coffee and caught up, trying to be very Portuguese and not rush things. Then it was off to the local council offices to pay stamp duty (around €900) and transmission tax (around €800). Next stop was the notaries office where we had not one, not two, not three but four Remax representatives. Tom because we were his clients and our translator, Valdemar who was the representative for the property, a woman who was in charge of finance (because we arranged for Remax to draw up the cheque) and the owner of the franchise to oversee! Less than an hour later I was presented with the key to the house in a box with a key ring and the deeds to the house. More money changed hands and I had payed the notaries fees (around €360). We then all shook hands and exchanged chaste cheek kisses. Off we all went to Monte de Estrada where the old owners introduced us to our lovely neighbours, Luis (pronounced Looish) and Sylvia (pronounced Sylvia). We were shown the button for the water pump, the key box of many keys (goodness knows what they are all for). After much more cheek kissing we were finally alone in our house, with all kitchen crockery and cutlery, white goods and a made up bed, whoop it was ours.We also met our neighbours cat, very vocal, very friendly.

'She' came to call with each visit we payed to the house. We bought some bits and pieces to make the house feel more ours, a couple of rugs, a couple of heaters and a tea maker (we couldn't find a kettle). We met up with Tom again to sort out the changing over of bills into my name, the woman at the electric company was on strike, the water board could not change the name over until January, pure bureaucracy, the bills were paid to the end of the year and no system is set up place to do anything in advance! We did however get 3 years council tax free, as is our right. On the Thursday I opened a bank account. The first bank tied themselves into a loop. They insisted that I be able to prove I was either employed or retired, proof of house ownership, proof of fiscal identity seemed irrelevant, we gave up and went to another bank. BPI gave me an account (though they wanted to know my mother and father's name despite me being 50), they also didn't ask for a deposit! Figure that. We managed to change the electric contract into my name despite our lack of Portuguese and the electrical woman speaking no English, waving of bits of paper and gestures accommodated us well. Nicola and Phillipe not only celebrated our purchase on the Monday night but came over to see the house on the Wednesday which was lovely, to share the house with friends was lovely. On Thursday a foal was born next to our land which was quite profound, to us anyway, a new life born where we will be starting a new life!

And to top all that we saw some cracking sunsets over the Mira at Milfontes!

Tomorrow..

Tomorrow... Tomorrow evening we fly out to Portugal, staying over night in Alvor befor driving down to Odemira to pay taxes and hand over the cheque for the house. We also get to meet the vendors who want to go to the house with us and introduce us to the neighbours. Later in the week our lovely real estate guy will help us set up our electric and water accounts and ask for a 3 year dispensation on 'council tax' Excited... Much!

Small anxieties and perfection.

I guess we counted on things being done a little faster than we should have, so when I announced that the eight days, for neighbours to respond, was up the letter had only just been sent. The eight days is now well and truly up, just a week and a bit until we exchange. We've just watched an episode of Grand Designs and a woman said something along the lines of 'It's better to have a small piece of preciousness than a large piece of mediocrity", out house is that small piece of preciousness, it is so special to us, and it will be ours. As we do not have Portuguese bank account yet I am transferring the money to our Real Estate agents tomorrow, I want to give it 12 days for the money to clear and the cheque to be drawn, I have small anxieties over little things that could go wrong. I want this so much, we've waited for so long (or so it feels), that I can't risk anything that might lose us this dream.

Exit left.

So we haven't paid in full for the house yet, but we will in less than a month, hear that less than a month, ooh feels excited all over again. The exit strategy is being planned, no more travel after the trip to sign so Phil can get his affairs in order, we have started planning how we will clear the house here in the UK and find a local hotel to stay at so we are close by, make sure it's totally clean and the carpets are tarted up professionally before handing the keys back. We are looking at road routes and will look into van hire after Christmas. Reality is striking and by golly it's exciting!

Eight days have passed.

The eight days have passed and no emails so we conclude the house is ours, can I just say "HURRAH" and happy just doesn't cover it! I wish I could find the words to explain how happy and excited we are, peel me off the ceiling. We are going to move to Portugal, we do have a house! Just emailed our real estate guy for confirmation... Wound up so tightly on this and need confirmation! In other news, I am helping someone else realise their dream too!

And so we wait...

I'm a bit on tenterhooks as though we are assured that neighbours never take up the offer to buy at the negotiated price, this is me buying a house and those who know me will know the disappointments I have had in selling houses. We finally got a copy of the promissory contract signed by the vendors and noted the date that they had signed so it was 8 working days from September 28th which includes a National holiday so Wednesday/Thursday will see us safe.

Our house is a very, very fine house...

And so we find a house.

Please note this is our experience of house buying in Portugal other experiences may differ! It is worth noting that I have only given 'our' experience of purchasing a ready to move into property that the owner is desperate to sell. All of the ownership papers and other legal requirements were therefore all in place. If one was buying a ruin to rebuild or land to develop then much more running around and background checks would be essential and timescales could telescope. We know, we did some on the first property.

We have found the buying process in Portugal is relatively straightforward though you do have to get your head around all the different classifications of land and what you can and can’t do with it. We were extremely lucky in that we found a lovely independent real estate woman Kirsten, who put us onto to some great guys at Re Max (1000). They could not do enough for us they drove us around, bought us coffee, water even the odd snack. You have to be prepared to be patient, buying a house is quite a social thing in Portugal so just relax and go with the flow, a lot of the time it’s just too hot to do otherwise. We did approach ERA about one property but it was ludicrously over priced and discovered many others to be likewise.

Remember to do as much checking up as you can yourself, some of the areas these people work are huge and it is your responsibility to yourself to look around, if you see something even slightly suspicious ie a small industrial estate, look into it, Google translate can be a great friend. If you use a solicitor in the buying process then you will have to state what searches you want doing.

So when you finally find your property or your property finds you, you will be asked to pay a ‘goodwill’ deposit of around €500 in cash, this is returned to you whether you buy the property or not, they will then take some basic information, including a photocopy of your passport. You will then need do acquire a fiscal number, you will need this for all transactions from buying a house to buying a car or even a mobile phone, the cost is €10.10, Tom our real estate man got ours for us, despite having to queue for ages as it was the last day for the locals to pay there back car taxes from 2008.

If the property is fully registered and there are no objections from any party involved in the sale (as ours is) we were advised that using a solicitor of our own would basically be a waste of €800 to €1000 euros as we are already dealing with advocates and notaries. However if you aren’t going through one of the big, reputable real estate agents then I would advise you use one, plenty of them speak very good English which is good as we don’t know a lot of Portuguese yet.

The next stage was to visit Remax’s advocate who drew up the promissory contract. You will be asked for a deposit, 10% of the value of the property, this is lodged with your real estate company, once it is paid and the buyer has signed the promissory contract, the deposit is transferred to the buyer and both parties are bound to it. If you pull out then you will lose your deposit however if the buyer pulls out they have to pay you double the value of the deposit.

With in the contract will be a time scale for the transaction to be completed, make it realistic, ours is set at six weeks as we are cash buyers and have our flights booked though we can change the date up until the end of November without defaulting. If we don’t sign by the end of November we lose our deposit.

If you are buying a small rural property then the neighbouring property owners will be given an 8 day option from the signing of the promissory contract to buy the property at the price you negotiated. This odd little law is due to properties being split down over the years through equal division between family members and becoming so small they are of very little use for farming so they offer the chance for neighbours to extend their plots. We are assured that this never happens (about 4 days to go on ours).

Our next stage is to meet a notary to sign final contracts and transfer the property over to us. They vendor prefers a cheque from a Portuguese bank so as not to incur bank charges, our real estate people are happy to do this if the funds are transferred to them in good time. I’ll add more about this part of the process once we have completed.

Tom has given us a rough idea of our bills out there, are you sitting down? Council tax is around €70 (£56) per year, yup that’s correct per year! Electricity will be around €30 (£24) per month, we will be buying a solar hot water system and some solar panels to reduce or negate this. Water is from the irrigation canal and though is ok for bathing and cooking can not be drunk, so it will be bottled water until we find a suitable filtration system, the cost is around €90 (£72) a year. So lots of positives there.

Our local beach just 6km away! Did I mention how excited we are? No? Well we are over the moon.

Disappointment or Google Earth is your friend...

Phil spotted a small industrial estate behind the property some time before our second visit to the house at Cercal, we did some research on the net and found it might be problematic, that proved to be true. We have now revisited, we still love the house and the land but it is not for us. After a visit to the local Camara we have found that planning permissions are currently being granted for the industrial estate that will go down pretty much to the border of the property we had kind of set our hearts on, that in it's self was not the deal breaker. The final straw was that the little lane at running the length of the field was likely (in the words of the man from the planning department) to not only be used for access but be developed into a proper road, as the water mains run along the far side of the lane any widening of the road would be likely to be on the land we wanted. So onwards and upwards there will be other properties and somewhere out there is ours quietly waiting for us to buy.

Well...

We're booked to go back on April 17th. If we still like it permissions will be asked for and if granted, an offer will be placed!

Exciting times...

"Don't fall in love with the first house you see", wise words! But we did and as you can see why from the photos, especially as we want to put up yurts to offer accommodation. Just ten miles from Vila Nova de Milfontes and the sea, the local council(Camara) wanting an increase in local tourism, the chance to see whether the council will OK all our ideas before we even think of buying the property...











We have of course been doing lots of research into buying property, taking advice from friends and generally nosing around the area, I have to say it is looking a very attractive proposition. We're going back next month for a second viewing and if we're still happy forging ahead with permissions to see how we go with that and who knows maybe putting in an offer, watch this space...

Well....

Well, after an 18 month delay our journey starts next weekend with a flight out to Portugal where we have actually booked to view three properties! Needless to say we are very excited! We are also combining the trip with visits to friends which makes it all the better.

Two of the properties are in the vicinity of Vila Nova de Milfontes and one in the Loule district, but it's not lol, it's quite a bit further out. A fantastic large house which needs a fair bit of renovation but looks structurally sound. One near VNdM is habitable and the other, well the other has walls and a roof past that we don't know until we see it!

In other news, I'm taking a Diploma in Photography, waiting for my fifth module to be marked.