Selling a property you inherited in Portugal

You don’t have to navigate a Portuguese property sale in another language — that’s our job. Once the property is in the heirs’ names, selling it is the last step, and we see it through from the buyer’s offer to the money in your account.

If the property is not yet in the heirs’ names, that comes first — see registering inherited property (or our full succession administration service) — and we can roll straight into the sale afterwards.

For families whose Portuguese estate we have already settled, the sale is seamless — we already hold the property documents, the power of attorney and the completed registration, so there is nothing to gather again and the sale proceeds without delay. The same lawyer who settled the estate handles the sale.

A single fixed fee for the whole sale, agreed in writing before we start — never an hourly meter, and never a percentage of the sale price. A percentage is what an estate agent charges; our work is a defined piece of legal work, so we price it as one clear figure. The fee depends only on the value of the property, and there is a lower fee where we have already settled the estate for you.

All fees + VAT. The “where we settled the estate” column is the lower fee that applies when we have already administered the estate for you — the documents, the power of attorney and the completed registration are already in hand, so there is less to do.

If the property still carries a mortgage or other charge, redeeming it and lifting it from the title at completion is a defined extra step — a fixed €350 + VAT add-on, agreed in advance. Nothing is open-ended: where there is more to a sale than the standard case, we tell you the fixed figure before you instruct us.

Disbursements are separate and never folded into our fee. These are the official, third-party costs of a Portuguese sale — chiefly the notary’s fee for the deed (escritura), the energy-performance certificate the law requires before a home can be marketed, and the land-registry update — each payable to the provider, not to us, and each shown to you up front so there are no surprises.

One thing to plan for on tax — separate from our fee. Selling can give rise to Portuguese capital-gains tax on the increase in value (mais-valias). Since 2023 every non-resident seller — UK residents included — is taxed the same way: half the gain goes into a Portuguese tax return at the progressive scale, with your worldwide income counted only to set the rate. For an inherited property the gain is often modest, because the value is effectively reset at the date of death. There is no withholding at the sale: the tax falls due with the following year’s Portuguese return, so the discipline is to reserve for it at completion. It is a tax cost, not our fee, and it is worth knowing about early. Where we act on the sale, preparing the sale-year return is part of the work. Advising you on your wider tax position is not — for that, and for the tax at home, we say early where an adviser is needed. You can read more in our plain-English guide to selling a house you inherited — and, for how all four countries compare, the tax picture before you list.

VAT is charged at the Portuguese rate (currently 23%) and always shown separately, so our fee is clear.

Timing depends mostly on finding a buyer — that part is in the hands of the market and your agent. Once a buyer is found, the promissory contract (contrato-promessa de compra e venda, the CPCV) fixes the timetable to completion: in Portugal it commonly allows a period of up to around 90 days from the promissory contract to the deed (escritura), though it can be set shorter by agreement between the parties. Where we have already settled the estate and hold the documents, the legal side is ready without delay, so the timing is driven by the contract rather than by paperwork. We act under your power of attorney throughout, so you do not need to travel for the deed.