H04E - Land Registry Certificate

Certidão de Teor Predial or Certidão Permanente Predial
Ownership of land and buildings is recorded at the Land Registry (Conservatória do Registo Predial). This register holds details of the formal owner as well as other rights to the property. These can include the details of a mortgage, other creditors’ interests in the property, or the existence of another promissory sales contract. It describes, in detail, the history of the house in terms of constitution and location, identifies the existence of cancellations or registered usufructs and, also, pending registrations, allowing full knowledge of the property legal situation.

These details are first registered temporarily by date and later are transferred to the formal register which is organised by property. This transfer may take several months so the formal register may not be up to date. 

The Land Registry Certificate (Certidão de Teor Predial ou Certidão Permanente Predial) is the document of the contents of the formal register. It is required for the transfer of ownership of the property and for other activities such as requesting planning permission and for the installation of utility services. Normally the Certificate is valid for 6 months. 

When you are purchasing a property, it is possible for there to be alterations to the Register between the date of emission of the Certificate and the date of signing the final contract (escritura). It is therefore advisable to check for new entries at the Land Registry on the morning of the signing of the final contract, or the day before. Following the signing of the final contract you should ensure that the details of your new ownership are presented to the Land Registry and that you obtain a copy of the alterations to the Registry by requesting a new Certificate. 

This document can be requested in person, at the Land Registry Office (Conservatória do Registo Predial) for the amount of 20 euros (please see contacts HERE) , or online from their website https://www.predialonline.pt/PredialOnline/FRM001RPOLCP_input.action , at a cost of 15 euros.

The advantage associated with ordering this document in digital format, in addition to being cheaper, is that whenever it is requested to change a registration act, after the document is subscribed, it is automatically updated.