Madeira Property

How to buy a real estate in The Madeira Islands

On April 1st, 2009 | By Madeira Real Estate in Real Estate Tips

Are you visiting Madeira Islands? You fell in love with a certain house you saw on the hills of this paradisiacal island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? You’ve fancy it so much you want to buy it? Well, there are a few things you must know before becoming the newest owner of a real-estate in Madeira Islands.

As commonly known the Madeira Archipelago belongs and has belonged ethnically, culturally, economically and politically to Portugal for over 600 years. And despite its particularities, as part of Portugal it is subject to the directives of the European Union, thus meaning that the major rules applied in Madeira Islands are the same in the rest of the EU.

In order to acquire your real estate in Madeira the first thing you need to do is to register yourself at the State Department for Fiscal Affairs (Direcção Geral de Impostos), where you will receive your fiscal card number. Without that no real estate or property trading whatsoever will be made. You can easily register yourself at any local Regional Services. You are now ready to invest in a Madeiran Real Estate.

The second thing you need to worry about is the fiscal obligations. The process of buying any type of real estate, property or land involves fiscal taxes. The ones that concern you now are the I.M.T. (which is the Municipal Tax) and the I.S. (which is a percentage over the acquisition price). If the real estate you are buying is for your permanent residence and if the price you are acquiring it is under 112.125€ you will be I.M.T. free. The I.S. is always 0.8% over the acquisition price.

The next step is to formalize your agreement. That is done in any local Notary through a public deed, signed by you and the person who is selling you your dream estate. The cost of this notary act depends also on the total value of the acquisition, and the responsibility of the payment is on the buyer.

And now we reach the final legal step on acquiring a real estate in Madeira. You need to registrar your property. Under the Portuguese law the registry of any kind of real estate, property or land is mandatory and you have a 10 (ten) day window to comply with it from the date of the public deed. You can easily do so in any Registrar of Land Office in Madeira. And it will only cost you around 250 Euros.

Now you are the proud owner of the real estate in Madeira.