- Proprietorship or class of title
Main right / Primary real right : OWNERSHIP
Local nomen iuris: Propriedade, propriedade plena
Definition: Ownership is the right to full and exclusively enjoy the rights of use, enjoyment and disposal of a thing, within the limits of the law and in compliance with the restrictions it imposes. (Article 1305 Portuguese Civil Code)
Main right / Primary real right : BARE OWNERSHIP
Local nomen iuris: Nua propiedade
Definition: Bare ownership is the ownership burdened by an usufruct or superficies right (building lease)
Main right / Primary real right : CO-OWNERSHIP
Local nomen iuris: Compropriedade
Definition: There is co-ownership when two or more people are simultaneously holders of the ownership of the same thing or right. The rights of the several owners of a common thing are qualitatively equal, though they may be quantitatively different; shares are presumed to be, however, equal in the absence of any indication to the contrary at the title (Article 1403 of the Portuguese Civil Code).
Main right / Primary real right : JOINT OWNERSHIP
Local nomen iuris: Comunhão hereditária ou conjugal
Definition: There is joint ownership when the ownership of a thing belongs to the heirs or the spouses pro indivisio (without shares). Hereditary communion may be the subject of an autonomous registration, which is optional, commonly called ‘the joint acquisition and without determination of part or right’, on behalf of all the heirs. (Article 49 Portuguese Land Registry Code). Joint ownership by the spouses, according to their matrimonial property regime, is always registered. It derives from the ownership or other right in rem entry, when that patrimonial regime is general community of estate or community of estate subsequent to marriage («comunhão geral» ou «comunhão de adquiridos») (Articles 1717 et ss Portuguese Civil Code)
Main right / Primary real right : POSSESSION
Local nomen iuris: Posse
Definition: Possession is the power that arises from someone’s actions corresponding to property right or another right in rem (article 1251º Portuguese Civil Code). The mere possession is registered only in view of a registrar’s decision (delivered in a special process organized in the Land Registry Service, according to articles 116º and following of the Portuguese Land Registry Code (before 2001 only in view of a judicial decision) in which it is recognized that the possessor has peaceful and public possession for a period not less than 5 years. It has the potentiality to shorten the period for adverse possession (for usucapio).
It is very unusual to register the mere possession.
(articles 1294º, 1295º of the Portuguese Civil Code and article 2º, nº 1 paragraph e) of the Portuguese Land Registry Code.)
Main right / Primary real right : SUPERFICIES
Local nomen iuris: Direito de superfície
Definition: Superficies is the right to build or to maintain an everlasting or temporary construction, as well as to plant or maintain plantations on a property belonging to a different owner.
The construction may occupy the soil or the subsoil.
(articles 1524º, 1525º of the Civil Code)
Main right / Primary real right : CONDOMINIUM
Local nomen iuris: Propriedade horizontal
Definition: The units (for inhabitation, commerce, industry, parking, etc) that integrate a building, when sufficiently independent and with autonomous entrance to a common part of the building or to a public road, may belong to different owners.
Each owner has an exclusive right of ownership to the unit and a co-ownership right to the common parts of the building. These two rights are inseparable. (Article 1414º of the Civil Code)
Compulsory common areas are: the soil and the foundations, columns, pillars, supporting walls and all the other parts that make up the structure of the building; the roof or roof terraces (although intended for use in any particular unit)); the lobbies, foyers, staircases and corridors of use or common passage to two or more joint owners; the general facilities of water, electricity, heating, air conditioning, gas, communications and similar. (article 1421º of the Civil Code)
Main right / Primary real right : TIMESHARE
Local nomen iuris: Direito real de habitação periódica
Definition: Right to occupy, perpetual or temporarily, for a certain period each year, a tourist housing integrated in apartment hotels, tourist villages or tourist apartments (which condominium might be formally constituted or not.
(Decree-Law 275/93 August 5th)
The inscription of this right gives place to the opening of a new “folio” (unit) for each period (usually a week). The owner of the condominium entitled for “time sharing” cannot constitute any other real rights on the housing units.
- Information on owners
2.1 If owners are natural persons, information of the owner or proprietor or holder of the main right registered will usually comprise the following:
– Name of the owner (first name, surname) in the way governed by national legislation.
– There may be also other identification numbers (tax number) but not mention of ID or national identity card.
– Person to whom the owner is married when acquisition is for the marriage or for matrimonial community of goods; person to whom the owner is married in any case and also civil status.
However, normally there should not to be expected that information includes neither the ID of the owner, nor date of birth, nor owner’s e-mail or telephone.
2.2 In the event that the owner or proprietor is a company or legal person, information will usually include:
1. Name of the company.
2. ID/Registration number of the company
3. Registered office.
And it will not include other data such as date and place of registration, registration number, business address, telephone or e-mail.
Information of the Portuguese land register system usually includes references to the:
1. Entitlement or substantial entitlement, act or contract which is basis of the acquisition for the proprietor.
2. Formal entitlement, deed of acquisition of the owner (not at the property unit sheet but within the archived documents).
There is not a legal definition for restrictions. It is a very wide concept studied studied by the doctrine in different universities.
Following Prof. Menezes Cordeiro (University of Law in Lisbon) restrictions on real rights would be the negative definition of the content of the property right derived from exceptions to the general prohibition imposed on people (in general) to interfere in the situation of a thing assigned to a certain rightholder.
The authors also teach that the restrictions may be established by law regarding public interests (for environmental or security reason, for example) or for private purposes (for example regarding neighborhood).
Information of the Portuguese land register system usually includes the existence of restrictions on the person of the owner stemming from insolvency or affecting the authority of disposal when they have been registered, seizure, attachment, interlocutory proceedings, judicial actions and several administrative and contractual restrictions.
According to Portuguese succession law, there are some forced heirs, the descendants and the surviving spouse. Concerning the descendants, they have the right to reduce other descendants inheritance parcels in case these ones have been given goods that exceed the quote they are legally supposed to receive. This is called the collation burden, registered to the ownership inscription when the property is acquired by donation of parents to son/daughter under that burden (articles 2104º and following of the Civil Code)
There are other restrictions, usually established in the public interest that are registered if determined by assorted legislation – article 2 nº 1 paragraph u) of the Land Registry Code.
With respect to the information on restrictions on the person of the owner, existence conditions antecedent or subsequent will be also included in Section B
In Portugal, there’re no trusts.
- Price LR information does not include the price of acquisition of the property ever.