After two months of bureaucracy, we are officially homeowners in Europe.
Image: Casa da Portela in October, with yellow flowers blooming in the gardens, the day we closed on the house.
12 October 2021
Our offer to buy the "quinta" (or farmhouse in Portuguese) was quickly accepted and without negotiation. We offered to close in 15 days. We thought it would be painless and quick...but Europe had other plans for us. It was July 26th.
Despite my years of working on projects in Europe, I had somehow forgotten what "August" meant. And at the end of July, we had no hope of moving further on our closing, at least until the end of August when everyone returned to work. My husband, quite set in his "American" ways, was frustrated with the wait. Nothing seemed to happen. Meanwhile, our attorney was particularly baffled that there was no official age listed on the property itself -- something usually produced before a property goes on the market. We later found out that the local government in Caminha now had to issue a document declaring the date of construction of our house.
September came and went. It was the Portuguese national election, and the government was focused on that. We were anxious and irritated. But, just as the month was ending, our attorney emailed us with good news:
The Mayor of Caminha has issued a decree on your house. He sent a team to inspect it, and we can now move forward! When we saw that decree a week later, it was almost like a scroll, with an embossed seal, and a signature from the Mayor himself. This felt really European. And really official!
A week later, we flew to Lisbon for the closing. We got the house and had the keys, but not without a pending fight with the unreasonably crazy seller. And that's where we get into the story about the missing toilet...in the next post.
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