Guides · Records, areas and BUPi
Already bought and found a problem? How to regularise a property in Portugal
By Carla Maria Marques, Portuguese solicitor (solicitadora)
November 2026 · 3 min read
You bought your place in Portugal, moved in or started renovating, and then something surfaced. The architect says the annex doesn’t legally exist. A neighbour claims part of your garden. The bank won’t lend against the property. Or you discover the purchase was never registered in your name.
Many property problems have a route to resolution, but some cannot be regularised in the way the buyer hoped. Establish what is wrong and preserve evidence promptly, because rights against the seller may have short time limits.
The most common problems, and how they are fixed
| Problem | How it is usually fixed |
|---|---|
| The purchase was never registered in your name | Registering it at the Land Registry, which should be done without delay to protect your ownership |
| The area is wrong | A survey and the appropriate tax, registry or cadastral procedure, after distinguishing a measurement error from an ownership or boundary dispute |
| A building or extension is not recorded or licensed | Updating the tax record and, where possible, legalising the construction with the municipality, usually with an architect |
| The plot is not mapped, or overlaps a neighbour’s | Mapping it through BUPi or a cadastre procedure, and settling the boundary, by agreement where possible |
| Access depends on a neighbour | Negotiating and formalising a right of way, and registering it |
| An old charge was never cleared | Checking the type of charge and obtaining the appropriate cancellation title or decision before applying to remove the entry |
The order matters. Some steps depend on identifying the plot and establishing the rights involved. A boundary dispute may leave a geometry reservation without automatically preventing every registration, while planning regularisation may be impossible in some cases. Diagnose the issue before commissioning corrections or works.
Can you claim against the seller?
Depending on the contract, the problem and the applicable regime, remedies may include correction, a price reduction, compensation or termination. A private sale must be distinguished from a consumer purchase from a professional, which can fall within the specific conformity regime of Decree-Law 84/2021.
Whether a claim is worth pursuing depends on several factors:
- what the contract and the deed say, and what the seller told you;
- the nature of the defect, the applicable regime and the seller’s knowledge where legally relevant; liability does not always depend on proving that the seller knew;
- whether the problem could have been found with reasonable checks before buying;
- the cost of fixing it, compared with the cost of a dispute.
Watch the time limits. Notification, the period during which a defect must appear and the deadline for bringing proceedings are different questions. The relevant dates may run from delivery, discovery or another statutory event, rather than simply from the purchase. The Civil Code and consumer regimes have different rules. Have the dates and evidence assessed promptly.
Where appropriate, regularisation and a claim or negotiation can proceed together. Preserve evidence and assess urgent deadlines before carrying out works or agreeing a settlement.
Let’s put your property right
At MGPS International, regularising properties is one of our core services. Our team brings together a solicitor and a cadastral technician, who is also a qualified BUPi technician, so we can handle the legal and the technical side in one process:
- a clear diagnosis of what is wrong, and in what order to fix it;
- the registrations, corrections and mapping procedures, carried out by us;
- coordination with your architect for building legalisations;
- agreements with neighbours, and an assessment of any claim against the seller.
We work in English, by video call and email, and you don’t need to be in Portugal for most of it.
Found a problem with a property you bought? Request a review and tell us what happened. We will assess the available routes, any urgent time limits and the scope and likely cost of the work before proposing the next steps.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice for any specific case.
About the author
Carla Maria Marques
Portuguese solicitor (solicitadora), MGPS International
