The Long Road to Ownership

Once we identified Santa Clara as an opportunity we needed to assemble a team of experts to helps us navigate this type of transaction. We struggled with what we would do with the big warehouse until we met a luxury tours and exclusive stays expert. We learned there is a market for weddings and special events in the Douro for parties of 150 to 250 guests looking for a private experience with accommodations. 

We had the beginning of our business model so now we had to do our title research and negotiate a deal with a family that has owned the property for over 200 years. We put in an offer and negotiated a 90-day close so we could try to get a mortgage loan in Portugal while we performed due diligence and pulled together the parcels that were part of the overall property. We had to get sign off from the surrounding estate owners which comes from a law to keep estates together.

We had a great team of lawyers and specialists to help us navigate a complicated purchase of Santa Clara. Even with a great team we had a lot of hurdles with the bank and the property fell out of contract with the owners. We were able to salvage the sale by paying fines until we could close the property with the bank. It took us over 6 months to go through all the local departments to get the property registered and for us get the title with bank financing. It was 6 months of many stressful events and money we didn’t anticipate spending to close this project. 

On April 5th, 2018 we signed the title and now the journey begins as we have to rehabilitate and capitalize the property and figure out our strategy.