This is where I live, but it could be just about anywhere. I have heard of similar problems in most countries in Europe, and of course there are many such problems in Central America. What on earth do you do when one of these problems hits you smack in the face? Or, more to the point, what should you do to avoid getting hit in the face in the first place?

Let me get something off my chest first. The world seems to be filled with people who have either too much money to throw around, or they don’t seem to have any grasp of business, and behave as if they have had the powerlines to their brains severed.

I have no sympathy with two probably reasonably sane people in their early fifties who buy a building plot with no access.

This article will attempt to cover most problems that are likely to occur when purchasing property abroad. The problems can range from a lack of water supply, to access problems, crooked solicitors, trouble at the planning department, language problems, compulsory purchase notices, stroppy neighbours who want to poison your dog, or your well, or dig holes on your land. Buying abroad can be an absolute nightmare. Let's try and make sure it isn't.

First and foremost, you need to get one thing straight. You are entering a minefield. You don’t know the language, the customs, or any of your neighbours. You have no idea how things get done in this new country. You don’t even know if there is a decent legal system to protect you, or whether things are done by greasing several palms. And whose palms do you grease? And how much are they going to want?

All this means you should be prepared to get stuffed. You will obviously try to employ someone else who claims to know the ropes to help you through all this.

I can't teach you how to be sensible. But I can throw up a few problems that are likely to surface. If you think everything is going to be plain sailing for you then don’t bother to read any more, just go out and get lucky (or get stuffed).

Remember Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it will. So, make a list of points where there could be mishaps. Let's have a look at some points where there could be trouble, and what you can do to try and avoid the hassle. The list is not exhaustive, but it is quite long so let's divide it into sections.

Problems with the actual property and its documentation:
The property does not have planning consent as advertised (either built illegally, or you cant build).
There is a problem with connecting the services.
The seller isn't the owner, or is only one of several owners.
The property being sold is not the same as that described in the deeds.
There are debts registered against the property.
There are rights of way over the property.
You have no access, or it is dependant upon someone else's goodwill.

Problems with the solicitor you are employing:
The way to deal with most of the above problems is to get a solicitor onto the job, but...
Is the solicitor a crook?
Has he any indemnity insurance?
What work will he actually do for you, and more importantly, what wont he do?

Problems with the neighbours:
Dodgy access, hunters with guns, poisoned pet food, a bloody great hole where your drive-way should be: How do you cope?
The problems in the first section are all easily solvable. However, it depends upon you either being able to do the things yourself, or getting a professional, reliable person to do them for you without taking the shirt from your back.

The only way to get someone who is any good is to start asking questions. The problem with this approach is that if two people bought property using a particular solicitor and there were no problems it may be quite simply because there were no problems, rather than because they had a good solicitor.

I remember reading a cartoon somewhere ages ago that showed a surgeon and his assistant in the operating theatre where something has gone wrong with the operation. The assistant says: "Let's ring through to the Registrar, he'll be able to help us." The surgeon says: "Rubbish. The Registrar is a goodie-goodie. He never gets into trouble. He wouldn't have a clue how to get us out of this mess."

The point here is that you need someone with special skills when the purchase is messy. Your average, clean-cut solicitor wont be much good.

In most countries where the legal system is not based on a more comfortably understood model there are serious problems for people coming in from North America, or Northern Europe. I live in Portugal, and although this country is part of the European Union, it's legal system is a total shambles. 

Not only are some judges totally bent, but the system is impenetrable, and they even have different codes in different parts of the country, which is the ultimate absurdity. It is not uncommon for judges to throw cases out simply because they don’t want to work that day. I have often been advised not to have a case listed in the summer months precisely because only one judge will be working over perhaps four districts and he will want to lighten the load.

One thing needs to be said right from the outset on this problem. Since real estate is the ultimate value in any society its value is closely allied to the legal system. If the legal system is inadequate or corrupt then the value of any real estate is diminished.

Think about it. If something goes wrong, what is your ultimate support? In the jungle it is a loaded gun.

What all of this amounts to is that the problems in the first section cant necessarily be solved by your lawyer, either because he or she doesn't check some of the problems, or because they don’t care, or because whatever the outcome it cant be backed up in court.

So the first big problem is getting yourself a good lawyer. You are probably better off getting one from outside the country who is used to the norms of your country.

Let's have a closer look at the problems under this category.

The property does not have planning consent as advertised (in other words it is either built illegally, or you cant build on the land you are intending to buy). There is a problem with connecting services. For instance, you have no right to water, or the public water and sewerage system doesn't pass anywhere near your property. Or you are living in a dry area, and although there is water, it is likely to run out pretty soon, like just after you have paid your money. Maybe the seller isn't the owner, or is only one of several owners. Maybe the property being sold is not the same as that described in the deeds, or there are debts registered against the property. Maybe there are rights of way over the property, or quite simply you are buying land, but you have no access, or it is dependant upon someone else's goodwill.

You can sort out all these problems relatively easily, but you must realise they can exist in the first place. You need answers to your questions about these subjects. If someone shrugs, and says something silly like "Don’t worry about that", or "Oh that wont be a problem", get another lawyer. Always remember there are plenty of properties to buy, and there are other lawyers. You don’t have to buy the house with problems, and you don’t have to use a dodgy or lazy or incompetent lawyer.

The following situation shows how careless some people can be about basic things.

I once had an extremely stupid conversation with a lady who had just been widowed. She inherited a lot of money and decided to invest in a property in Almeria, southern Spain. When I asked her just a few simple questions, such as: "What's the water situation like these days in Almeria?" She looked puzzled, and answered that it came out of a tap like anywhere else. 

"Yes, but do you have rights to public water?" I persisted. 

Well, maybe she did, maybe she didn't, but her response to that question was the height of stupidity. She said, "But the construction is being done by an American company. They must have checked all that before putting up the houses, mustn't they?" 

I politely said "Good luck," and left her to her own devices, vaguely remembering the phrase "A fool and her money are soon parted."  Please remember one very simple thing. The object of a company is to make money. You can make more money from fools than any other commodity.

But, back to the plot.

In many countries solicitors charge an extortionate fee for conveyancing. In the UK the average costs end up being around £500. The last time I bought a house in Portugal the legal fees hit over €3,000, four times what it would have been in the UK.

Generally you will be advised to be sure to get yourself a solicitor to deal with the local purchase. Let me give you several reasons why this is a bad idea.

They are horrendously expensive. Generally they have no indemnity insurance, so if they screw up it is your money down the drain. (Never deal with a solicitor unless they can show you their indemnity insurance, and make sure it is current.) They will only check the documents to see if they refer to the land you are buying and the name on them is the same as the person selling; they don’t do anything else; which means you wont know what is likely to be happening next door; whether there are plans afoot to put in a motorway extension, or a main sewer through your back garden; whether there are disputes over boundaries; whether there are footpaths across your land; or whether the area is zoned for tourist expansion; and so on and so on.

It is often possible to get a foreign solicitor, who is used to dealing with these questions to do the job for you. If you can get one, do so, but check him out first. Also, it is usually the case that all developing countries have people who specialise in dealing with bureaucracy. You could probably do better employing such a person and sitting down and telling them exactly what you want them to do, and ask for a fixed price. But you need all the items I have mentioned above thoroughly checked. And you should get copies of the responses, and look at them.

Only proceed when you are happy, not before. If you are not happy, now is the time to hassle. You should always hassle before you buy rather than afterwards. Before, you have some leverage, afterwards, you have none.

I would strongly suggest you get copies of the maps that go with the deeds and check them out with what you can see on the ground. Make sure your property has a habitation classification, and make sure there are the right number of people on the deeds, who correspond with the people who are selling to you; and make sure there will be no debts registered to the land.

The map with the deeds shows various plots with numbers on. These numbers will be described in the text. My own deeds to my home in Portugal show me owning about six different numbered plots, and in the text each plot has a description showing it's size and what you can do with it: it may state it is for habitation, or for agriculture, or some other purpose. It is easy to read these descriptions as the words are very similar to the English. If the document does not describe one section for habitation then you cant live there, you need to get planning consent, unless there is a separate document from the town hall saying otherwise. Very often an owner will claim a ruin was used as a habitation decades ago, but unless he goes down to the town hall and swears a statement, and two witnesses swear likewise, his claims are worthless. If he wont make this statement tell him to go to hell and take his worthless land with him.

No local solicitor will check for local authority plans to do any building or compulsory purchase near your land. They wont check your boundaries or for any disputes. They wont check your access or rights of way, or your right to access basic services such as electricity water and drainage. Basically this is why employing one is a total waste of time and money.

I recently bought a house with a track running right across it. I insisted that I would not buy unless the Camara (town hall) would confirm it was not a public right of way. The first document I received showed it was public, until I found that the solicitor had asked for clarification on the river! The second letter came back showing no right of way over the land, so I purchased. I also insisted on a letter from the camara showing footpaths.

You can actually look at all this stuff in the town hall or at the water department. Both have large-scale maps, and buying land without looking at these maps is idiotic.

An interesting aside here. I subsequently raised a mortgage on of my properties and an illiterate Portuguese surveyor came out (called a valuer here, not a surveyor; a surveyor draws maps). He claimed my home was in the wrong borough and I had no right of habitation. It took me three months of argument to prove with my crummy Portuguese that the surveyor was obviously a half-wit. The address was given on the caderneta predial and it cross-referenced with all the numbered plots with their descriptions, and the whole thing dated back to 1927. So much for legal and professional competence in Portugal.
One other point is of interest at this stage. Many people buy homes abroad in the names of companies either registered within the country or offshore. The rules in Portugal and Spain keep changing, but currently (mid 2006) the rules are roughly as follows.

If you buy using an offshore company, there are two classifications, the white list and the black list. White list countries are the countries which have tax arrangements with the local country; those on the black list don’t. This means if you buy a house using a Turks and Caicos company you will have a black listed company owning your home which will be taxed heavily. If you use a company registered in another EU country or a country with a reciprocal tax agreement in place then you will be okay. My house is owned by a Malta company, my neighbour's by a UK company.

The benefit of a company owning your home is that when you sell you don’t sell the house, only the shares of the company. If the company is offshore there is no corresponding sale within the country and so tax is not payable. It also means that the purchaser does not pay purchase tax on the property. On the other hand, there are expensive maintenance contracts for foreign companies. Generally speaking I would suggest that under current rules if you intended holding the property only for a short time you would be better off owning it through a white-list company, and if you are intending the place to be your home for the long term to own it in your own name.

Currently you can trade your home up or down the family tree with no tax liability, which is also a very useful situation. And, if you own your home through a foreign company you will almost certainly find that obtaining a local mortgage will be impossible. The mortgage on one of my Portuguese homes is through the UK branch of a Portuguese bank, and setting that up was seriously complicated.

The final point on my first list of problems concerns access. In Portugal you have by law an automatic right of access to your land. If your neighbour denies that access, you can go to court to resolve the matter. The court might insist you come in through a different route. Maybe there is an old road which has been covered over for years and it is a bit roundabout, but so long as it gets you access you will be expected to use it. If there is no other access, the court will give you right of way over your neighbour's land. This will solve your access problems but it will not solve the problem of an uptight neighbour. You need to think whether you want to start off your new home with a serious argument with your next door neighbour. It might be best to buy elsewhere, and leave the access problem to someone else.

We seem to have covered the first two sections that deal with solicitors. But what about the local authority?
You will have to cope with planning applications if you have bought a plot, and that includes getting architectural drawings done for the building.

First, let's look at a typical scenario for someone buying a plot of land in Portugal.
You find an agent, you go on some inspection trips, you choose your plot, you buy it. So far, so good. Now you need an architect to draw the plans, submit them to the planning department, and get them passed.

The person to get for this job is someone who knows several of the guys in the planning department. My architect was chosen because he went to school with the head planning guy. I assumed I would have a fair wind with any application that had his name on the bottom. In Portugal I am aware of one planning office which will give an okay to any application you make within reason, so long as you part with a brown envelope containing €2,000. I assume it is the same in every camara in the country. All you need do is get a local person to find out who to talk to and what the going rate is, then go and see them with your proposition, and the money.

The planning department I deal with was hopeless. You may not believe this, but I do have the plans to prove it. The plans were sent in and several load-bearing pillars were in the wrong place, several lintels were too short, and there was no front door. Have you ever heard of a house being built without a proper door?

How did this happen? Well, the architect hassled me to enclose the porch as it faced north-west, which is where the cold wet winds come from. In the end I agreed, only instead of adding a door on the open porch, he just filled in the gap with a wall, so my front door was now completely blocked in. and the plans were passed like that. Okay, I should have checked them, but that was going to be the only change on the document and I have to admit it never occurred to me that anyone would be that stupid, or that the planning department would pass a set of plans showing no front door. But this is Portugal. Be warned!

Until I got my habitation license we had to get in and out of the place via the garage. Doh! Obviously I have now fixed it.
With your plans passed you will need a builder. Dealing with builders can be a nightmare. Do get several opinions before choosing one, and check the one you choose has an Alvara. This is a license allowing him to build. If he doesn't have one any building that is put up by him will be illegal.

You will need copious papers before you are finished, and all of them will cost you money. Your habitation license is necessary, and without it and a copy of your deeds and your passport you cant get water or electricity. That will cost whatever the camara thinks fit. Mine cost €110. Someone else I know only paid half that. I have no idea why.

For peace of mind get someone to write you down a route-march showing all the stages that have to be gone through before you have your dream home relatively hassle-free. And get them to give you a rough idea how much each piece of paper is going to cost. Then bite the bullet, and just work your way through it.

Okay, so you move in. You now have neighbours. Mine are relatively sweet, so far. There is a gypsy encampment a kilometre down the road. They can be a pain, and there have been a few arguments, but generally we get on okay. And I think with them being at the end of the track they tend to keep other undesirables away.

My other neighbours are farmers and a postmen. They are quiet and generally friendly. None speaks English, but we stutter away in various oddments of different languages and seem to get on relatively okay. Being generally of peasant stock they speak the language in their own special way, which means it is all rather confusing. The latest word to stump us was "ming". This was a new one on me, and we couldn't work out what it was until someone else worked slowly through the sentence with us and we discovered it was the local way of saying "domingo" which means "sunday". Life in the sticks surrounded by peasants can be terribly hard.

Peasants can also be cantankerous and bigoted. If you get into an argument it can end nastily. There have been half a dozen incidents in the Algarve over the past five years when an argument has ended with one party going for his gun. There is no threatening behaviour. The guy comes back, takes aim, and shoots, and that is that. He will then sit down and wait for the guardia to come and take him away.

Dealing with this sort of thing is difficult. The secret is to try and strike a balance between standing your own ground and giving way a little. But talking about inter-personal skills is beyond the scope of this article.

Generally speaking we have found the Portuguese to be good neighbours. We know of several incidents where there have been thefts, and the police have been called in, but generally the accused denies all knowledge of the theft and that is the end of the matter. On the other hand, the Portuguese are generally very honest. I regularly leave my keys in my cars, and often leave my wallet on the dashboard for days on end.

I was recently travelling on the train to Lisbon. Someone came down the corridor and there was a bag on his seat (we have to reserve seats on the express). This was worrying. There was the bag, but no-one admitted to owning it. The person whose seat it was took about fifteen minutes before cautiously moving it to the next seat, and felt responsible for its safety until its owner finally returned from the buffet car.

I guess you have to accept that every country can be a right royal pain in the backside unless you know how to get around, dodging the screw-ups. But if you can successfully get around the Portuguese hassles then you will find the place a rather pleasant home.