Paula P. had invited me over several times before, and I was quite eager to see her family home. Grandpa and Grandma have passed away, and by now almost all of their children have too, so the house now belongs to all the cousins.
They all want to sell the house
Paula lives nearby, in another family home. She lived there for years with her old aunties – but don’t think it was cramped, because the house is already quite large, and Paula added an equally large extension to it. That is to say, it was already there, it was the henhouse, but it needed a major renovation. Now she has the entire house at her disposal.
One of her aunties passed away a few years ago, then her mother died, and the other aunt has since been admitted to a nursing home at the age of 95. That wasn’t easy, because there was no room anywhere, but at a good moment a spot became available in a chic new nursing home, and her aunt was lucky.
Now Grandpa and Grandma’s old house needs to be sold
Before that happens, there are a number of matters to arrange. To start with, everyone must agree on the sale. If even one person doesn’t want to, it won’t go through. “But that is going to change soon,” Paula explains, “then you will only need one heir with a will to sell. Probably because it is extremely difficult to get all the heirs together and get them to sign … in the past, that has sometimes been so complicated that the houses for sale collapse from sheer misery before people have reached an agreement.”
And yes, even here in the most densely populated part of Portugal, the coastal strip, you still see houses here and there, that have been abandoned and neglected for decades, with collapsed roofs and broken windows. It takes quite a long time, but one fine day, there is nothing left but a pile of earth with bits in it. Most of the time, those are the really small, old cottages.
The P. family’s houses are of a slightly different caliber
We meet in Tentúgal, in the small square in front of the Carmelite convent. On the side street is the entrance to the family home. The grandparents had a shop nearby, where they sold everything a family needs: food, tools, chicks, homemade wine – even the famous Tentúgal pastries. The business prospered, so the grandparents were able to build this beautiful and large house.
Built in 1898, it has never been subjected to all kinds of bureaucratic requirements. Before 1953, you didn’t have to do anything at all. Unfortunately, if you want to sell it now, you have to do all the more. “A floor plan needs to be drawn up – fortunately, a topographer can do that,” says Paula, “and energy labels, a current registration with the Land Registry and the Tax Authorities, everyone has to sign…”
By now, I’ve long since lost my way, literally and figuratively, because after the entrance, there have been so many rooms and hallways, with explanations like, “This was the maid’s room; she would make breakfast and serve it in the breakfast room …” Such a house doesn’t even look that big from the outside, but once inside, I suspect you could wander around for a long time without ever finding your way back out. A very special way of building, back in the day.
We haul a beautiful antique cabinet into my van. “That’s one less already,” laughs Paula, “now find people for the rest …” I’ll leave it at that, I think, because my houses aren’t built that way – small on the outside, big on the inside.
That is an art that has been lost, I’m afraid.
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(Disclaimer: I’m a bit tired of the keyword stuff and Google’s dictatorship. So here they are, and I’m also hoping for the cleverness of AI in this matter that it will still be found and read, but that I don’t have to force myself to use the right terms in the title and headings. #selling #house #Portugal )
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal. We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere. Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.