Advice On Buying
Newlyn’s employs professional and reputable sales agents, each one being qualified, experienced and knowledgeable in all aspects of the purchase and financing process.
Purchasing a property in Portugal is a straight forward and easily managed process, with our sales agents and your appointed lawyers leading you though this painless process.
The steps to ownership of your dream home in the sun are as follows:
Reservation
Complete a reservation form and pay a deposit of €7,500. This secures your chosen unit at the agreed price.
This deposit is refundable up to the time when you sign an Investment Agreement or Promissory Contract. You must then provide details to enable an Investment Agreement or Promissory Contract to be prepared by Newlyn. Such details include:
- Full names and address of purchasers
- Martial status
- Copy of passport of each purchaser
- Original utility bill of each purchaser as proof of residence / address
Appointment of your Lawyer
You may of course use your own lawyer, but we advise you to use a respectable lawyer in the Algarve.
Our sales agents will advise you on a suitable lawyer in the region, this may be Portuguese, English or Irish as suits you most.
You may then arrange Power of Attorney with your chosen lawyer to sign papers and receive and transfer payments on your behalf.
Investment Agreement / Promissory Contract
If the unit you are purchasing already has full planning permission, then you will signs a Promissory Contract, until this time, an Investment Agreement is signed.
A cumulative 10 (ten) percent of the purchase price is payable on Investment Agreement. The Agreement commits Newlyn to obtain full planning permission within a maximum period of 12 months to enable the purchase to go to Promissory Contract.
If Newlyn do not obtain such permission, then the full deposit plus interest is refundable. If the permission is obtained, then the purchaser must progress to Promissory Contract.
On Promissory Contract the purchaser will pay cumulative 25 to 40 percent of the purchase price (depends on the Development), and is then committed to pay the balance on completion when the final deed (“escritura”) is signed.
Payments terms very slightly on each development.
Newlyn’s lawyer issues these Agreements / Contracts to your lawyer, who will then advise on the necessity to transfer funds and sign documents.
Up until the Promissory Contract, all deposits are held in an escrow account.
On Promissory Contract the payments become the Developer’s.
Portuguese law protects your payments in that a failure of any Vender to perform after Promissory Contract entities the Purchaser to receive twice his deposits back.
Stage Payments
If stage payments are applicable, Newlyn’s lawyer will advise your lawyer in a timely fashion.
Tax Registration
Your lawyer will obtain for you a “fiscal number” being your tax number in Portugal, which is necessary to purchase your property. There are no others implications with regards income tax in having this tax number.
Completion / Deed
On completion of the unit the “escritura” is to be signed, being the deed of ownership.
All balance payments are due on signing and a few days prior to this, your lawyer will require you to transfer to him the amount to cover IMT (Property Tax) this being about 6% of the purchase price.
Registration
Following the deed (“escritura”) your lawyer will arrange to have the deed registered. This normally takes just a couple of months.
Total Costs
On top of your unit purchase price, allow 7 to 8% to cover IMT (Property tax), lawyers and Notary fees.
Finance / Mortgages
Our sales agents can advise you and introduce you to mortgages agents.
We have association with Conti Financial Services, with Barclays, with UCI who can all offer minimum 70% mortgages, with BANIF and now with Portuguese bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) for O Pomar, on a stage paymetn option basis. CGD will actually help you with your initial 10 and 25 percent deposit payments (link will be made available soon).
For those persons transferring deposits from Sterling accounts into our Euro accounts, we can recommend Sterling Exchange who will offer competitive currency exchange rates. You can view their website here.
