Buying a Property in Portugal

• Paperback - March, 2004 - How To Books
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• By: Sue Tyson-Ward
• ISBN: 1857038894

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Reviews by readers

Catchy title, good cover, not enough

The saying that you must never choose a book by its cover is entirely applicable in this case. For an insider guide, as claimed on the cover, this book is too superficial. It does not come to grips with the key issues of buying your property. The summaries at the end of each chapter are a good measure of the poor level of information. In the chapter on the Purchasing Process the summary has nothing more substantial to say than it is a good idea to give Power of Attorney to a Portuguese lawyer if you are buying from the UK.

An annoying characteristic in this book is that common place statements are delivered with great solemnity. What the book lacks in useful information it exceeds in platitudes.

I fell for the title and the cover. It served me right. I had to spend more money getting another book. I am pleased I have now found a couple of excellent books on buying property in Portugal. I hope my experience can help others.

Delusions of knowledge

This book says the same as others on property buying in Portugal (less than most) but wants to look better than any other. It boasts a lot, unfortunately it boasts a knowledge it has not got. What I find most irritating is the way it uses, misuses, Portuguese cultural items and expressions in a completely misleading way. One example is the Ze Povinho, given as a title in the book. This is translated as Joe Public and left unexplained but serves as title for a section where you are told that the Portuguese like foreigners who speak their language (not surprising!), that they can be officious and intransigent but (contradiction!) are proud of their tolerance, etc etc.

This is all a great mixup and Ze Povinho is not Joe Public. Ze Povinho is the creation of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, a Portuguese who lived in 1846-1905. He was a caricaturist and a ceramist and created several grotesque, comic figures as a means of criticising the Portuguese society of his time. Ze Povinho is one of these figures. It was a satire at the Portuguese people in a period of international political problems.

I lived in Portugal quite a number of years and got to know the country and the people quite well. I feel strongly about the misunderstandings that books like this one spread about such a friendly people.

Better leave them alone

I got to know this book through an American friend who is planning to live in Portugal. My first reaction was trying to forget the book all together but on reflection I think that something must be said.

It starts on the first pages. The acknowledgment lists several names but not the names of the Portuguese people and organizations that provided the information used in the book. They did so in good faith and that information has been used in a book that slags them off. You do not get to the end of a chapter without reading (and again and again) that the Portuguese are "slow". This is one of the many cliches the book uses to draw a picture of the Portuguese as "slow" backward people. Other comments are made like that the Portuguese are ever so happy if only you utter a few words in their language.

This book is obsessed with titles. It says that a Portuguese person with a university degree takes a doctor's title. This is a misunderstanding of the Portuguese education system. Graduates of a 6-year long university course like lawyers take the title dr., and the title Dr. is for those with a Doctorate (PhD). What is wrong is in Britain, where this book was written, where medics take the title Dr. when they have no Doctorate! You go to the doctors, no, you go to the medics, who have a lower degree than that of Doctor. Still on titles this book goes on saying that other people in Portugal take titles, like an engineer, who is called "senhor engenheiro". Here again, better look at what happens in Britain, where a mechanich is called an engineer! The Portuguese senhor engenheiro has a university degree, for which he studied 6 years.

A book like this one that appears to hold the Portuguese in such low regard better leave the Portuguese alone, better not have been written. It does not help anyone. This xenophobic book says that the Portuguese have "no feeling of sentiment towards animals". I would say this book has no feeling of sentiment towards the Portuguese, nor towards those who are not Portuguese and have bought the book trying to get to know the Portuguese!

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