Portal: Lagos - the devil is in the details

Lagos (pronounced "Largoosh") is in the South West of Portugal.  The entire coast from east to west is under 2 hours of driving and so it was a short drive of about and hour to get from Tavira to my cousin, Trevor's house, which overlooks a golf course with a large green expanse of lawns.

Trevor kindly hosted us for the weekend and took us sightseeing almost every day in the region around Lagos, starting with an hour-long walk on a loop to the cliffs overlooking beaches near their house and then for drives to beaches along the coast from Lagos to Sagres. 

The sign in Sagres (South East tip of Portugal) "the last Bratwurst before America"

We had almost daily walks to different places of interest in and near the city in the week that followed.

 The coastline is incredibly beautiful.  It is reminiscent of the Great Ocean Road that I visited when I went on a work trip to Australia in 2018.  

There are eroding rock sentinels in the sea and cliffs of tan-colored sandstone that appear to be crumbling.

and further along the coast some very vertical cliffs that are apparently a much harder rock.

and a little further along some banded sandstone cliffs

On one cliff is an old fortified stronghold - perhaps from when the Moors ruled Portugal and Spain - that looks as though it is going to end up in the sea at some point.

As you can imagine with all of this beautiful scenery the question on our minds was "How did you get to live in such a beautiful place?" and the answer was quite complicated.

Trevor and Charlotte, his wife, moved here some years ago after spending much of their working life in North Africa where his family had many good years but a few really harrowing experiences.  His journey to the Algarve took a few years, starting with buying his house for vacations and then eventually settling here.

Over the few days of going on walks to and along the shoreline and hanging out with him, we got some new perspectives on what it takes to buy and own a home and then move to Portugal.

Trevor and Anne with an abandoned house on the horizon

In Portugal, any modification outside of the home (including additions) requires permits from the authorities.  If these permits are not registered in the equivalent of a deeds office, the additions are illegal.  Most knowledgeable buyers use a trusted lawyer to verify that all of the existing buildings were built with a permit.  Many sellers and realtors get fuzzy on the details of permits and try to pressure buyers to seal the deal before someone else does and then, without permits, insurance companies will refuse to cover the buildings.

Land-use laws in Portugal are complicated.  Buildings and land can be classified in ways that prevent any repairs to old buildings, or the construction of any new buildings, so buying a piece of land might result in you owning something that you can't build on.

We heard about someone who bought a smallholding of several acres only to find that the section of the smallholding that came to them was a tiny area of land on which the main house was built.   The orchard and barns remained in the hands of the seller.  Someone else bought a house to discover that most of the things that were attractive to them in the sale were added without permits and learned that they would have to demolish these "add-ons" or hoodwink the new buyer if they were ever to try to sell it again.

Many homes for sale in the Algarve priced at around $100k to $200k are basically unlivable and possibly irreparable (depending on how the houses have been zoned).  The realtor photographs will show furnished rooms but not the big hole in the ceiling or the sagging, collapsed roof.

If you ignore the irreconcilable permit situation, assuming that you will never sell again, you doom your descendants to a legal quagmire that might result in them abandoning the property in turn.

Another glaring hiccup for us (should we be inclined to try to move to Portugal) is that the visa process to get residence includes getting a recent "vault" copy of our full birth certificates.  This is a process that we went through in South Africa for the Green Card in the USA.  Only here, the vault copy has to be embossed by a government official within 3 months of the application being made for the visa.

Anyone who has experienced South African bureaucracy at work will know that this means probably 18 months.

So the bottom line is that you have to get a lawyer (preferably referred by someone you trust or from a large law firm) and a realtor, and be ready to put an offer in for a house only once the permit and land-use paperwork has been checked for potential obstacles, and someone has properly inspected the house for any glaring problems.  Then buy the house and then have someone ready in South Africa who can expedite your applications for documentation for the permanent residence visa.  No doubt there will be more to learn if we actually go down this path.

It feels like buying a home in America all over again - assume the seller is scamming you and do your best to discover how before you sign any papers.

On Wednesday Trevor took us on a walk to the Lagos marina and into the old part of the city.  You can tell that this place must be very busy in the summer.  Already this early on in the year there are rows of stalls selling tickets for boat rides and kayak adventures into the caves below the cliffs we'd seen earlier on our walks.

We had wondered about art in the city because there wasn't the same proliferation of sculptures and art on the walls of buildings and in plazas as we had seen in Mexico, but I suppose we hadn't been looking in the right places.  

The center has some beautifully tiled buildings

and streets with patterned stone paving

and more wall art

It was great to reconnect and share stories of many years ago...  Who would have thought that together we'd have forgotten so many things.

Luckily our shared memories were pretty complementary and we were able to piece together details between the two of us.  Trevor has an extensive family tree with details about our shared grandfather that I had never known about before!  He came from Blackpool - we all thought as a lone adventurer - but it turns out his father and a few of his brothers were also in South Africa when he was young.

A fellow traveler from way back.