Buying an apartment in Portugal? Check these 7 condominium documents first
Foreign buyers scrutinise the apartment and forget the building. But when you buy a fraction, you buy into a condominium — its finances, its disputes and its deferred maintenance. These seven documents tell you what you're really buying.
1. The founding deed and building regulation
The founding deed defines each unit and its ownership weight — the number that determines your share of every future cost. The building regulation sets the house rules; short-term rental restrictions often live here.
2. The last two or three assembly minutes
The minutes reveal the building's real life: recurring disputes, works being debated, fines approved, rentals restricted. Two years of minutes tell you more than any listing photo.
3. The current budget — and the approved accounts
What does the building spend per year, and on what? Compare the approved budget with the actual accounts. A budget that keeps rising, or accounts that never get approved, are both signals.
4. A declaration of no debt
Ask for written confirmation that the seller's quotas are paid up. Outstanding condominium debts attached to the fraction can become your problem.
5. The reserve fund balance
A healthy reserve fund means planned maintenance gets funded without emergency assessments. A near-empty one plus an ageing façade means a special levy is coming — with your name on it.
6. Planned and pending works
Approved-but-unexecuted works (roof, elevators, waterproofing) are future costs already decided. Check the minutes for amounts and timelines.
7. Insurance and inspection reports
Confirm the building's insurance coverage, and ask whether any technical inspection reports exist — they map the building's real condition beyond the fresh paint.
The practical problem
These documents are usually a pile of Portuguese PDFs and email threads. Reading them — in a second language, against a purchase deadline — is exactly the kind of work most buyers skip, and later regret.
Stop searching your inbox for answers
Clara reads your building's minutes, budgets and emails — and answers questions like this one instantly, with the source cited.
Try the free demo →Legal references: Portuguese Civil Code (horizontal property regime); Law 8/2022 (administrator's debt declaration on sale).
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Rules vary by country and by each building's own constitutive title and regulations.