I used to be a girl who knew all about lime; the ones you quarter and stick into the top of a corona beer, the lime that goes in a caipiroska and a caipirinha. The lime that’s indispensable in Thai, Lao and Vietnamese cooking. Even the lime that can be squeezed on oysters, while sipping champagne under a sail of the Opera House and gazing out over Sydney Harbour… sigh…
But now I’m a girl who knows all about the other lime. Building lime. Calcium oxide. Quicklime. Hydraulic and Non-Hydraulic lime. Hydrated lime. Slaked lime, Burnt lime, Fat lime, Lean lime.
Before the advent of portland cement in the mid 19th century, it was lime that held together buildings made of stone and brick. While the wholesale adoption of portland throughout the world practically shelved the use of lime mortars, lime is now making something of a comeback.
These days, lime mortars are primarily used in the restoration of historic buildings; where they are compatible with the existing mortar, they blend in terms of texture and colour to the original, and the flexibility of lime accommodates the softening or weakening of old bricks and stone and does no further damage to them.
Scientific and academic interest in the history of construction history and the efficacy of modern materials has also had an influence on lime’s recovery. We now know a lot more about the chemical properties and reactions at work when using various building materials as a result of studies and testing at a scientific level. For example, due to the worldwide concern about the environment, researchers tell us that lime creates very little CO2 in production compared to portland cement, and this subsequently opens the door to its use as an eco-friendly alternative.
In my case, there are several reasons to consider using lime.
Firstly, portland is too hard for schist-stone and your mortar should never be harder than your building material. Secondly, it’s incompatible with the existing material: You should repoint like for like, if possible. The house was built entirely with a clay mortar. Clay absorbs and releases moisture, it’s highly flexible and highly permeable. Cement is the exact opposite. Using cement on the outside of a clay filled wall would potentially result in cracking of the cement pointing as the rest of the building heaves and shifts. Probably it would trap moisture inside the walls and cause saltpetre and other moisture related problems. But lime, on the other hand, is like clay, flexible and breathable.
So, where do I start? There is not just one type of lime or one standard recipe. So I’ve been trying them all.
At first, due to some translation/linguistic ‘nuances’ (dictionaries can only do so much – check out the list of words for lime in English in the 2nd para, and then times by three to get the Portuguese variations… then you add complications like the similarity of ‘hydraulic’ and ‘hydrated’ and all this results in is a blank stare from the guy at the shop) the only lime I could get my hands on was quicklime. ‘Cal vivo’ in Portuguese.
Quicklime needs to be slaked, i.e. mixed with water and then left to ‘fatten’ (ferment, say) for anything up to 6 months before it is used. Oh bummer. But fortunately there are plenty of ’skip the rules’ DIYers on the internet offering up all manner of experimental alternatives, so I aligned myself with them to start with.
First I made up ‘hot lime’ and cement mixes; i.e. straight from the bag 1:1:3 lime: portland: sand. At this stage I’m using brickies yellow sand, not ideal for mortar but a nice colour. This is too strong a mix, and it’s a very dodgy way to use the lime, but it results in an aged patina (probably because it’s burning the stone as it reacts) that looks really good. This mix wont work for the engineer though, who’s also the ‘responsavel de obras’, the inspector. It’s too unorthodox and it will probably all fail anyway.
So then I slaked the lime for 24/48 hours. There are a few ways of slaking. Firstly you can use about 1:1 water, and this does a crazy thing of drying to a powder after giving off a lot of heat. That powder is now called hydrated lime (cal apagada). Better still is to use a 2:1-4:1 (depends on the quality of the lime – I find a 2.5:1 a bit stiff and 3.5:1 nice and workable but maybe a bit weak) and this turns into lime putty… after a really fun volcano-like eruption… stand back while watching this movie!
The third slaking method, a very traditional one taken from The Art of the Stonemason
by Ian Cramb, is to mix the quicklime with damp sand, 1:3, and turn it over occasionally over 6 weeks. I’ve got this going on as well.
A word of warning though: I had been fiddling about with the quicklime for a few weeks with only casual regard for safety. One day I was turning over the sand-lime mix in the box for just for a couple of minutes wearing a t-shirt. There was no visible powder on my skin, but I washed my arms off with soap anyway. An hour later I was covered in blisters, including my shoulders – it even went through the t-shirt! Not good. But fortunately I’m not quite so stupid not to wear goggles and mask because I could’ve been blinded! Now, several weeks later, every time I go out in the sun, I get blisters. Nasty stuff.
The putty (even slaked for this ridiculously short 24 hr period) makes your mortar really nice and sticky and easy to work with. Even mixed with grey portland, (1:1:6 is the correct ratio – according to CSIRO – very reliable) over several weeks it dries to a bright white. I also did a few mixes with one part clay in the mix, clay that came out of the original wall. This resulted in a better colour, marginally, but more on clay later.
So far all of these mixes contain cement, which for new wall building will be fine, provided the mix isn’t too strong, and I can get the colour right. But for pointing old walls, this needs a pure lime and sand mix. Slaked quicklime/sand mixes are, these days, only recommended for interior pointing because it is so vulnerable to the elements while it takes years to harden. So I moved on to Hydraulic lime.
The term ‘Hydraulic’ (or ‘non-hydraulic’, as quicklime is) refers to the lime’s ability to set under water, or not. Hydraulic lime sets when combined with water, therefore it dries hard quickly, like cement does. Non-hydraulic limes stay soft initially and gradually harden over a longer time.
There are three types of Hydraulic lime, basically weak, medium and strong (or #1, #2, #3.5 and #5.) The strongest is almost as strong as cement, so it’s usually only used for building areas subject to harsh conditions such as by the seaside, or chimneys, or window sills. But what do you know, #5 seems to be all I can get here in middleofnowhereedgeoftheoworld, central portugal. The #5 is a horrible grey (3.5 is white, I believe) so I’ve done some colour experiments: This time I’m using river sand (a greyer sand with larger particles.)
What do you mean you can’t tell the difference? On the left is a straight Hydraulic:Sand mix at 1:3. Horrible colour and horrible to use. None of the nice stickiness of the putties. In the middle is 1:3 plus 5% ferrous oxide for colour. Still horrible but slight improvement. On the right is .5 hydraulic: .5 sand slaked quicklime, : 3 river sand, 10 % ferrous oxide. Getting closer, but still horrible.
So where does that leave me? Hydraulic too strong, too grey; Non-hydraulic too weak, too white. I think I have two more options.
The first one is pozzolans. They are additives that make non-hydraulic lime harden like hydraulic lime. They can be bagged powders like Brick dust, Fly Ash, or fired clays as found in Pozzolan, Italy. There are proprietary mixes like Metastar. But can you get them in Portugal? My hardware supplier has never heard of a pozzolan, and all I get from google is one academic who mentions “nationally produced” pozzolans in a paper. I’d better send her an email. Maybe she’s my new best friend.
My other option, as some of you may have been thinking, is clay. If lime can make a comeback why can’t clay? If my 5 metre tall walls are still standing after 70 years, why can’t I apply the “like for like” rule and repoint with clay? I’m not suggestion that I dig it out of my garden like the old boys did. I don’t mind buying some peace of mind in a bag. And more… there’s actually a company in the Algarve, Construdobe who produce clay mortars… it’s sounding like a solution, isn’t it? If only my engineer can be convinced…
to be continued….
The house came without an electric stove and in my new-found penny-pinching peasant state of mind I took to cooking over an open fire. Once I had worked out through trial and error just what this fire stove required to work efficiently (my happiness now depends on a secure supply of pine cones) I have really become addicted to the whole rustic gourmet thing darling…
I’m not new at this rudimentary cooking game. Actually I’m something of a connoisseur of roughing it. I love to camp but I have to eat well. I remember the first time I ate wild garlic. I was camping in chilly Tasmania and I made a lasagne using the whole head of garlic sliced like a (larger) vegetable between layers of tomato and bechamel. It was baked in the ground covered with coals – sort of hangi style. Later, tucked up in sleeping bag under the stars I was treated to a glimpse of a rare Tasmanian Devil when he came to clean up the scraps. Mmmm it was good. Garlicky little Devil.
I can almost still smell a delicious asian style noodle soup I cooked up in a trangia while sneaky-spot camping in a Roman ruin in Tunisia. My trangia and I had some great adventures on that trip. Cooking on the open deck of a ferry on a Mediterranean crossing. Making hot chocolate for new friends while waiting for the sunrise on Mount Sinai. And then entertaining the pilgrim masses with the Miracle of the Burning Wall when I decided to add more fuel to an already flaming canister – oops.
I was also once a cook on a safari through the oases of Western Egypt. We roasted whole sides of lamb, barbequed freshly caught fish, but also made simple pastas with olive oil, fresh local cheese and roasted pine nuts. Yum.
So just give me a pile of sticks and some matches, and I can whip up something tasty from whatever is at hand. Forget fancy pants recipe instructions like “gently simmer for 3 minutes” or “dry in a slow oven” and forget rare & exotic ingredients. No kaffir lime leaves or galangal in Central Portugal. Curry just comes as curry, not as 24 different endangered spices. One has to make do.
Bacalhau
… is Cod. It’s an ugly meaty fish but inexpensive and versatile. They say the Portuguese have 365 recipes for bacalhau. It’s a staple, you might say. The national dish.
And it’s convenient! I still think it’s funny when I bring home a dried cod carcass and put it in the cupboard and forget about it for a while. There’s a fish, in the cupboard, for weeks. I think it’s novel.
Bacalhau Risotto.
Dried bacalhau needs to be rehydrated by placing it in a cold water bath in the fridge for two days. You should change the water at least 3 times each day, and if I forget to then I’ll leave it for a third day. Any less then your fish will be very salty.After the bath, I dry the pieces on a clean teatowel and cut them into large bite-sized chunks. Then I put the chunks in a bowl with garlic and olive oil.In a large frypan or casserole dish, fry a large onion. At the same time start warming about a litre of fish stock, hopefully fresh. If you only have cubes then you can improve them by adding sliced leek, carrots, onions and parsley to the warming stock water. To the onion pan I add the rice – I usually use carolino if I cant get arborio – and stir until all the grains are coated and transparent. Then I add the fish and garlic to the pan with the onion and rice, gently turning the fish so that it doesn’t break up.At this point I might add some vegies – sliced leek, tomatoes or carrots all work well. Also good in this dish are peas and beans – but I wouldn’t add these until the end as I don’t like them well cooked.
Add a cup or so of white wine and let it reduce.
Then gradually start adding the stock, a ladle full at a time until it’s almost completely absorbed. I check the base of the pan to prevent sticking, but otherwise I don’t over-stir.When the rice is al dente I then add some chopped parsley, piri-piri and lemon juice. And then taste for saltiness. I don’t add extra salt until I’ve tasted it as the saltiness of the stock and the bacalhau is variable.
Sometimes I omit the lemon and add a slurp of cream, for an extra decadent comfort-food experience. Yum!
Couve, a portuguese cabbage
More like a spinach than a cabbage, couve is one seriously popular plant. It is everywhere! There are hundreds of types of cabbages in Portugal but probably the most famous is the couve-galego which is used specifically in the classic portuguese soup caldo verde. Country people are passionate about their couve, and before I grew it myself the neighbours would proudly land huge bunches of the stuff on me. Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of green leafy vegetables, but they are one of life’s necessities and so I gave the couve a go. It packs a vitamin rich punch, (it’s actually one of the most nutricious foods you can eat) and now I like it so much I make this dish at least once a week. I’m converted.
This is my super-simple-fast-and-healthy recipe for when you can’t be bothered thinking about what to make. And one I always have the ingredients for as couve produces leaves all year round.
Pasta couve portuguesa.
While the pasta is cooking, fry the onion & garlic in a frypan with a generous quantity of olive oil. Place the finely chopped couve leaves on the top with a spinkling of salt and pepper and put on the lid. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and add it to the pan. Serve with grated parmasan. That’s it!
Goat
One thing I really like about Portugal is the variety of meat and seafood available at the local supermarket. I can’t get other things I consider ordinary, like fresh milk and peanut butter, but I have a choice of 25 fish varieties, rabbit, quail, turkey, game like venisen and wild boar, and infinite types of sausages and dried and smoked meats.
And there’s goat. There’s a traditional goat & red wine stew here called a chafana, but I don’t claim that this is anything like it, I just wish I had a more exotic name for this dish than Goat Stew.
Dredge the goat pieces lighly in flour and brown them on all sides in a pot. Add onions and garlic and finely diced carrot and let them sizzle for a bit. Deglaze the pot with 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar, and 1/2 cup of red or rose wine and let it reduce slightly. Add quartered potatoes, a tin of tomatoes and a maybe some water or stock so that the meat is covered at least half way. Season with salt & pepper, a bay leaf and some rosemary or marjoram and then cook slowly for four hours. I do the slow cook on the top of the salamandra (pot belly stove) in the living room, as then I can watch TV, work on the web site, nurse the cat and cook dinner all while keeping cosy on the sofa.When it’s cooked (the meat should be falling off the bone) I serve it topped with a pile of rocket leaves from the garden. A crunchy bread roll is essential for mopping up the juices. When you’ve eaten all the solid bits but there’s still some sauce left, it’s great for lunch with an egg tagliatelle or torn lasagne sheets. Mmmm, very wintery.
Peach Peru
While on the subject of stews cooked on the salamandra, this little invention of mine has become a bit of a favourite this winter. Turkey (Peru in Portuguese – interesting country name switch don’t you think) is cheap, but the cuts are chunky and therefore not well suited to pan frying or anything else really but a slow braising. My mother used to make a yummy apricot chicken and the morrocans are fond of fruit in a tangine (see, the arabs have pretty names for stews as well), so with these things in mind, here’s what I’ve come up with.
Have the butcher chop a couple of legs across the bone as in osso bucco. I usually remove the skin on turkey and chicken to reduce the fat. Fry onion and garlic with a few teaspoons of Caril (curry powder), a teaspoon or two of piri-piri (red pepper), a pinch of nutmeg, ground ginger and cinnamon, until the spices are well blended and darken slightly. Brown the turkey pieces and then add a cup of white wine or sherry. Let it reduce a few minutes then add a tin of peach halves. The liquid should be at least half way up the meat, but if not then you can add a cup of chicken stock. Cook slowly for 2-3 hours. I taste for seasoning at the same time as checking to see if the turkey is cooked through to the bone by inserting a small steak knife and watching if the juices run clear or pink. Sometimes I add little olive-sized new potatoes and carrots to the pot about a half hour before the end. Otherwise I serve it with with salad and rice and a blob of plain yoghurt.
I didn’t come to Portugal looking for a house, but I think the houses came looking for me.
I liked Portugal right away. The people are so laid back and unpretentious, the coffee and pastries are to die for, and the architecture is amazing. Lisbon and Porto, and many of the smaller towns are extraordinarily grand but so many of the richly decorated buildings are neglected and falling down. Passing through the countryside in the train or bus, I’d see hundreds of gorgeous old houses and stone buildings in ruins. And everywhere: for sale signs. Mostly old and crappy hand written ones that are also saying “no one wants me”. I was intrigued.
The idea of living here for a while was really appealing.
So I got on the internet to have a look at prices. Very affordable, I thought. Not as cheap as Bulgaria, the property hotspot in 2007, but it had far better re-sale potential. I researched building costs, the cost of living and I looked at my own budget. (To come – How I Finance My Freedom) I could make it work if I could renovate it, doing a lot of the work myself, and then sell before running out of money. But I also saw it as a slow-build, during which I would be living the village life and learning Portuguese.
Then I explored foreign ownership, the buying process, capital gains rules, and looked for any restrictions on DIY renovations (as exist in France and Italy). It’s all out there on the web. And there was my residency visa situation. As an Australian citizen without an EU passport, I have no automatic rights to stay or work anywhere (except New Zealand). So this was another obstacle to overcome.
After three weeks of going back and forth from my tiny old hotel room across Avenida Liberdade in Lisbon to an internet café in an enormous 18th century dance hall, I felt like I had a fair grasp of the situation. It was all possible. Not easy, but possible.
finding a property
The two major real estate agents, REMAX and ERA both have nationally-based websites where you can search according to region and price and more. A price-based search from €10k – €50k resulted in properties from the Lisbon area to the far north, with particular concentrations of properties around Castelo Branco (centre-east) and the Minho. In general terms, the Algarve and the coast are more expensive than the north and the interior. The south is more “blue and white” in architecture and there is very little stone on the coast. There was nothing in this price range in the Algarve or lower Alentejo, the most southern regions. I’m not saying that there are no bargains to be found there: all it takes is one agent to take an interest in rustic properties in a particular area to generate a market. I’m sure you could choose a region and drive around visiting the local agencies and investigating ‘for sale’ signs. You’ll need to speak Portuguese for this. But there are also English- speaking independent agents (and smaller agencies) on the net who focus on rustic properties.
But I was after properties in bulk and I didn’t have a particular area in mind. I wanted to see everything.
Using a phrasebook to patch together emails to agents, I zig-zagged all over the country looking at anything in the price range. But when I arrived in the Minho I recognised what I was looking for: Stone. All over the Minho are small granite ruins, in stunning countryside. I saw one-bedroom-and-kitchenette-type potential for around €15k; larger ruins on 2000m2 with beautiful views for €20k. It got me excited. The potential of these places was obvious; these stone ruins already had so much character and charm. Sometime in this early stage, I saw the house I would eventually buy and it was not in the Minho but in the Beiras (centre), south of Coimbra. It would remain my favourite for the rest of the search. But there were problems.
the trouble with rustic-rural deeds
The advice from the internet was to make sure the deeds, ‘artigo’ (article) in Portuguese, for the property are correct. That is; what is on paper describes what you are looking at. You may have several articles for one property. In my area the land is divided into tiny 25m2 parcels, for example. Most of these rustic/rural properties have not changed hands for many years, if ever. Many will have been inherited, many will have been added on to without official permission, bits of land may have been swapped with a neighbour or other pieces given away; perhaps informally, without updating the records in the council, the lands office or the tax department.
As a result the deeds, which describe the size of the land, the buildings, who the neighbours are and the history of the building, can be out of date.
The original deeds may have never been correct in the first place. In order to pay less tax, people often underestimated the size or standard of their property. There many reasons why the records may have not been kept accurate. I imagine that during 40 years of dictatorship (prior to 1974) people were less inclined to deal with officials and tried to keep to themselves; during the last century Portugal had a very low level of literacy and your average country farmer had little money to spend on lawyers and notories. The idea of a property ‘market’, and the house as a temporary asset, is only a new concept. The family house was to be inherited by the kids (actually, yes, the oldest male) who would also live there for eternity. But mostly there’s the ‘if I want to build a nice stone shed for the goats it’s really none of anyone’s business’ and I agree! But as time goes on, it becomes more and more complicated and more expensive to make the corrections.
My guess is that a Portuguese ruin-buyer might know the people involved, can talk to the neighbours to verify any details, is more familiar with why discrepancies exist and might be less worried about being ripped off the way a foreigner might be. However, as a foreigner, you’re sailing blind, you don’t know who to trust, you don’t speak the lingo and all the advice says “BEWARE”!
This was the problem with my house. The deeds were wildly inaccurate and the estate agent was useless. He neither understood why it was important to me nor had any inclination to find a solution. It was already obvious that agents in Portugal don’t work the same way as other agents I knew. ‘Work’ might be an overstatement. In Australia, real estate agents tend to be highly motivated people unnaturally focused upon material possessions and success. In Portugal they are different. My impression was that they were not prepared to do anything much at all to sell a house. For example: I make an appointment at their office with a week’s notice to see the documents for a house. I get there, no papers. They are trying to sell a house and the client hasn’t given them the piece of paper that says they own it?!? When eventually some papers appear they make no sense. The house has, at-a-glance, 100m2, and the agent is insisting that what we saw together was 25m2 because that’s what’s on the papers. Huh?!? One agent actually told me not to ask questions. Huh?!? One agent told me that my husband must trust me very much to let me see properties all alone. Uh-Huh?!?
I understand that these old places are not worth much in commission, but I was a keen buyer saying please sell me a house! The other curious business about Portuguese agents, male variety, is it seems to be almost obligatory to crack onto your potential buyer. I had begun to feel like a supermodel for the all the passes coming my way… Such a pity the “unprofessional” vibe wasn’t a turn on… Anyway, I had to give up on my favourite house for the time being as it was too complicated. So I looked at another 25.
locating ‘the magic’
Yes, another 25 more houses! I was looking for ‘the magic’ of the favourite but I also had boxes to tick. I could see now that the house that I was buying would most likely become a “casa do campo”, a country holiday house. I had come across a very useful brochure published by a lender which analysed the Portuguese market and, in particular, the profile of the “2nd home” house buyer. It told me that the ‘casa do campo’ market was alive and well and was in fact predominantly made up of Portuguese buyers and not foreigners. The brochure outlined the average price (€150k) the median price I.E., the price more people are willing to pay (€115) and what they want for their money: the usual light/ space/ aspect/ ambience factors but specifically: 3-4 bedrooms, a garage, a usable garden, etc, and in what order these things were important. How important was having shops/café/bars nearby? Not as important as having an open fireplace..
Therefore, my ruin needed to have this potential if it was to do well, once it was finished, in the Portuguese marketplace. My own instinct was, if the house was going to be a useful as a weekender, it should be no more than three hours from Lisbon or Porto, where the people were making their money. This also suited the foreign buyer; no more than three hours travel from the closest airport.
three strikes
I attempted to buy three out of the last 25, but they all fell through. Two were fantastic bargains and were snapped up by someone who either didn’t care what the deeds said or was given privileged access to them before me. Or perhaps they put down a deposit in good faith and checked out the problems later – who knows. The third property had restrictions on extending the size of the house.
More important than the details written on the deeds, is how the land is ‘zoned’. You need to know whether the property is a on a rustic title (land only) or urban title (buildings) and what the local council’s rules are governing these. The rules govern whether any new buildings can be constructed and how big they can be, whether the existing buildings are legal and can be retained and whether anything existing can be extended and by how much.
I was coming to the end of three months in Portugal, which is all Australians are permitted (actually it’s three months in the whole of Europe to be precise, but that’s another story). I’d seen 33 houses, and I didn’t have a house to buy. I was still thinking about my favourite one. I explained the situation to another agent from the same franchise, someone bilingual, with more experience. He agreed to help.
The plan was to request that the owner make a rectification on the property; IE update the records, thereby confirming exactly what it was that he was selling. We saw the house again and negotiated with the owner. I was very impressed when the helpful agent talked the owner €3500 off the price.
I briefed a local lawyer (who spoke some English) on a promissory contract. The contract would include the rectification request but as well the submission of my building project plans to the council. I’d only be committed to buying the place if the plans were approved. This ensured that if there was anything dodgy about the legality of the existing buildings I would not be stuck with a dream-house dud.
berlin
Then I left Portugal and went to live in Berlin. I had to do this to apply for Portuguese residency. It took a few weeks for the contracto promessa de compra e venda (promissory contract) to be written, but by end January 2007 it was signed by the owner. In the meantime I found a builder and architect through an English guy I met on the plane, who was also building a house there. I made a quick trip back to Portugal to sign the contract, put down the deposit and to brief the builder & his architect on the house. They said it would take about two weeks to do the plans. They lied.
In the contract, the owner had 60 days to make the rectifications to the deed. March comes: nothing. I’m sending emails and calling my lawyer frantically about the seller breaking the contract. The lawyer gives them two more weeks. Nothing happens. I rant and rave some more but then realise that it’s not doing any good and I give up and focus on getting the project plans finished. “Two weeks” had become two months. For more on that saga you’ll have to see Building (to come).
Mid-April: we get an update from the agent who has been trying to sort things out. Unfortunately by this stage I’m not interested in the complicated alternatives that he’s come up with nor hearing about the problems he’s encountering: I see this is as the owner’s problem and his obligation is to honour the contract. I have problems of my own (see Visas – to come). All the while, I am in constant contact with the council explaining my situation and trying to find ways to circumvent or speed up the process. The problem is that I need the rectification to legalise the existing buildings so that they can be included in the project. This tiny little council (pop. 3000) has a bilingual ‘international relations’ person and he is awesome, ferrying questions to and from the decision-making engineer.
June comes along and I receive an email from the agent saying that everything is ready. After a moment of joy I ask to see the rectification papers and THEY ARE WRONG! One of the buildings on the property has mysteriously not been included in the rectification. Emails fly in all directions, reasons are given, excuses are made. I want to speak to the owner directly but the agent says that his wife is sick in hospital and won’t give me his number. My Portuguese teacher and I look him up via yellow pages and his wife cheerfully answers the phone. After telling me off, the owner says hasn’t seen the rectification papers and is speechless when we tell him about the missing building.
I come to the conclusion that after six months of lawyers and agents I’ve got to find a solution myself. I go back to the council. To work out an alternative we need the final plans from the architect. “Two weeks” has now become six months. The bilingual-builder-go-between has done a disappearing act. So we call the architect direct. My daily Portuguese lessons have now become problem-solving workshops as my feisty Brazilian teacher and I take on the recalcitrant men of Portugal. Now, apparently, the architect hasn’t given me the plans because the builder hasn’t paid him. But I’ve asked the builder repeatedly, in writing, for an invoice or some account details so I can send payment. The architect had been told a variety of elaborate stories about me. Now I’m feeling like I’m part of some convoluted conspiracy and Portugal is some Twilight Zone full of mad people. Things have become so weird it’s funny.
But I get the plans. I send them to the council. We find a solution. The plans show a house that is a bit less than 200m2 and that’s the limit for that area and my parcel of land. I pack up my life in Berlin and book flights.
back in portugal
I go straight from the airport to the architect’s office without stopping once for a coffee & pastel da nata. I take the project from the architect and deliver it to the council myself. Naturally as it’s August, all the right people are on holidays including the owner who needs to sign something to allow me to submit the project…. but I’m used to the whole obstacle course thing now and eventually the project gets submitted. It takes three months, but it gets approved. Hooray.
Meantime I’ve hired an all-new crew: New spunky-chic lawyers who are charging a quarter of the usual foreigner rip-off rate. Superb new spunky-chic architect and her engineer who also charges one quarter of the usual foreigner rip-off rate. He says the project will take two weeks. Somehow I doubt that, especially as it’s exactly seven times the size of the first project. It could take years. It takes two weeks.
Just as I was thinking things were going to run smoothly from now on, the shit hit the fan again.
november
The day before we are set to sign the deeds, my clever-spunky lawyers discover a problem. Their manicured hand shook as they reached for their ciggies. I try to supress a smirk. After everything I’d been through, one more disaster will not upset me. Perhaps also I am so damaged from the process that I enjoy watching other people suffer.
A moment passes, the ladies exhale. The rectification, they say, (using the one word I never wanted to hear again) is not, in fact, a Rectification. It is a Fabrication! Instead of updating the old deeds, someone created a brand new article as though the house and land never existed before. Considering the exhaustive proofs required to create a new deed (affidavits from all the neighbours for instance) my lawyers cannot imagine how this was achieved…
Anyway, the upshot was that the original articles for the property still existed independently of the new one, and therefore the owner would be at liberty to sell a piece, or the whole thing, to someone else without me even knowing! Scandalous! Oddly enough, I wasn’t harbouring bad thoughts about the owner or the agent, despite myself. I accepted that we had tortured each other equally. And as I told the lawyers, deep down in my soul I didn’t believe that they were trying to diddle me. We came to the same conclusion: that I buy all the old articles as well as the new one. If the owner was acting in bad faith, he wouldn’t go for it. But he did. It would cost me a lot more in taxes, but all the deeds, in all their imperfection, would be mine, in just a few more days’ time.
the celebration of the escritura
That’s what they call it. That’s the time when one signs papers and hands over cheques and there are handshakes and best wishes, a time that one might be tempted to call it ‘a celebration’; one might be tempted to think that the nighmare is over and at last the ‘dream’ is realised… but no, no, no! It’s never over until the fat lady sings…
Earlier in the day the owner had shown us all a bag of antique keys for the house and how he had labelled each one for me. After the signing, he left with the bag, neither agent nor lawyers, nor I catching him in time. When I get to the house in the afternoon, I discover that it’s still full of their stuff; family photos, crockery, doilies… things I had expected them to have taken away. After all, they have had AN ENTIRE YEAR to do so. I was told that the owner intended to come back in a few days, let himself in with his own keys, and collect the rest of his and his wife’s belongings.
At first I let it mingle with all the repressed indignation of the well behaved foreigner I’d become. But after a quiet night’s rest in my sweet hotel bed (again), I decided enough was enough. Using my old film producer’s voice I told the lawyers THAT THE SITUATION WAS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE, that I was CHANGING THE LOCKS and THROWING THEIR SHIT OUT ON THE STREET.
My lawyers had to go beyond the call of duty. Apparently it took an entire day of negotiation, but the owners came at six the next morning and removed themselves from my life. And then I popped the champagne.
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