The first step should be clarifying the aspects of the purchase, regarding the price and what’s included in the deal, as well as require all legal documents to proceed from the vendor.

Before buying a property in Portugal, each grantor needs to have a Portuguese fiscal number which is a tax identification number issued by the Portuguese tax authorities. If you’re married, your spouse also needs to issue that number whichever is the assets condition. Also note that this number will always identify you as a tax payer.

Before proceeding any further, you should know how much you will expend with taxes involved with your acquisition. The taxes are based on the price of the property or on the amount of evaluation of the property in the tax department. You can quantify for the stamp duty 0.8 percent and for the property transmission tax between 0 percent and 6 percent if the purchase price is lower than €1,000,000, and 7.5 percent for over €1,000,000.

After gathering the legal documents and your fiscal number, in order to secure the deal the next step is to grant a reservation contract or a purchase and sell promissory contract, whereby all conditions for the sale agreed with the vendor will be stated including the completion date, price of the property, payment terms, date and circumstances of completion, pre-emption notice if any, obligation of expenses, guarantees, delays, breaches of contract, jurisdiction, real estate agency involved and furniture and equipment inventory if it’s included in the price, and others according to the situation of the property.

The intervention of a real estate agent must be declared in Portugal. In case of omission of this information in the deal, you incur in the applicable penalty of the crime of disobedience.

In the promissory contract a deposit is agreed between the parties to be paid at the signature of the said contract, and all the conditions have to be respected by both parties.

After all of the process is completed, the deed of purchase and sale will be granted, and the property is transferred to you and formally registered in the land registry department and in the tax department, which grants you full security of ownership.

In the event that you will not be able to attend all bureaucratic procedure, your Solicitor can represent you, analysing all the legal aspects of the purchase process, including confirming that the property is free of mortgage, debt or other contracts.

Copyright: By The Portugal News, in Business, Invest, Property