Land

Land is the category where the gap between what is being sold and what is being bought is widest, and it is almost always the same gap: a plot is offered with “construction potential” and the potential turns out to be somebody’s opinion.

In Portugal the answer is not a matter of opinion. It is written down, in the municipal plan, and it can be established before a euro changes hands.

The three things that decide whether you can build

• What the PDM says — this is the one that decides it. The Plano Diretor Municipal is the council’s zoning plan, it classifies the ground itself as solo urbano or solo rústico, and it determines what may be built there, at what density and to what height. It is a public document. Anybody selling a plot on the strength of its potential can be asked to point at the part of the plan that supports them.
• What the caderneta predial says, which is a different question. The matriz records a property as urbano, rústico or misto, and that is a tax classification set by the revenue — not a planning one. The two do not have to agree, and when they disagree it is the plan that governs. A plot inscribed as prédio urbano can sit on solo rústico and be unbuildable, and a seller quoting the caderneta as proof of buildability is quoting the wrong document. The classification does decide the transfer tax: rural property is charged at a flat 5%.
• Whether it is inside RAN or REN. The Reserva Agrícola Nacional protects good agricultural soil and the Reserva Ecológica Nacional protects flood plains, steep slopes, coastal strips and aquifer recharge zones. Inside either, building is restricted to a narrow set of exceptions — agricultural structures, essential infrastructure, sometimes the rebuilding of something already there. A plot can be beautiful, well-priced, correctly described, and legally unbuildable. Note who decides: non-agricultural use of RAN land needs a binding opinion from the regional RAN body, and REN goes to the CCDR. Neither is the council, and a câmara saying it has no objection is not the consent that matters.

And then water

A plot with no confirmed water connection and no licensed borehole is a plot with an open question on it, and in the drier parts of the country that is a question with a real chance of an unwelcome answer. It is worth settling in writing rather than assuming, and worth doing before the promissory contract rather than between it and the deed.

What we do

We take the question to the authority that answers it rather than to the seller: the câmara municipal for the plan, and the CCDR or the regional agricultural body where a reserve is in play. We come back with what is actually permitted. Where the answer is that the plot does not work, that is the useful answer and it arrives before the deposit rather than after it. Where a site needs assembling from several owners, we deal with them one at a time, and in an order that does not tell each of them what the others have agreed.