Frustration is not a strong enough word for it. Over the past few months we have been looking for a property to buy so we can move away from a top floor apartment and out of the city.
The house and farm we made an offer on back in February has received no response form the 4th owner, even though she told the estate agents that she would be in Fundão during the Summer and would contact them. We now assume this to be the end of our chance to get this and put those six months wasted down to experience which we will not be doing again.
Since July we have seen many places and some were very good for our needs. All those which had a large enough construction were outside our budget, even those that needed a significant amount of work. Everything that is affordable is too small to realistically live in.
So now we are at a point where we have found an old ruined barn construction with over 1½ acres of land, 3 wells and some olive and fruit trees. The building is small but we have a plan to open out a wall and add a small extension for a kitchen. We spent some time preparing a design and making sure it would suit our needs but now we are running into legal issues regarding the habitation licence. Estate agent says it's ok, our solicitor says it is not. We're leaning towards the solicitor's view but are hopeful that a solution can be found which means we can renovate the building to our specification and get a habitation licence to live there.
So far we haven't handed over any money or made an offer but this is looking exciting at the moment.
Yes, it looks a bit broken and needs much work, but we think it could be a home. Those walls are 2 feet thick and have a lot of character, just no roof.
Some see a pile of stones, we see potential.