Hi there,
In a previous post I told you about the incompetence of the Municipal Chamber of Porto:
Today I will tell you how the Municipal Chamber of Porto is an incompetent body for absolutely everything, except for persecuting and harassing.
I denounced before the Municipal Chamber of Porto the former owners of the house, who not only swindled me, but also defrauded the Portuguese State. These people did not pay for the building permit, nor the new occupancy permit; as they lied in the measurements of the caderneta predial, for years they were paying less than half of the corresponding taxes.
In Spain they would act immediately to penalize and make them pay all that money with a fine and with the due interests accumulated for years.
Instead, the Municipal Chamber of Porto told me that they did nothing and that it was now our fault.
After I filed the complaint, two officials came to inspect the house and confirmed that I had been swindled. I received a letter stating that the house did not have a license and that it had illegal construction work, and that was the end of the matter.
As the illegal situation of the house did not affect me to continue with my normal life, I would do the legalization when I had time or when I needed it to sell the house.
One day, out of the blue and without warning, 3 women from the Municipal Chamber showed up to “inspect the property”. Although there was no warning, I let them in as an exception.
Then they sent a surveyor without prior notice whom we saw through the security cameras since we were not there and during the afternoon of that day they called to ask when they could come to do a topographic survey for “audit”.
I told them that I was never at the house in the morning and that I would let them know if I was there in the morning someday.
It is interesting to note here that the Municipal Chamber wants to “inspect” some illegal works and it is not known if they will be demolished in the future. Wouldn’t it be normal to legalize them first? Why don’t they inspect the rest of the illegal works in Porto before mine? In Porto surely more than 90% of the houses have illegal works.
It turns out that on September 21, 2023, a surveyor shows up again without prior notice saying that they had supposedly sent a certified letter. I told him that I had not received any letter, so logically I did not open the door.
At this point I got angry and prepared a letter that I sent to the Municipal Chamber in several complaints and to the Presidency of the Republic:
“Excellencies of the Municipal Chamber
I am herewith filing a formal complaint for your persecution and harassment.
On September 2, 2022 I bought a house and later discovered that I had been ripped off, as the house is illegal because renovation work was done without a license.
As it is perfectly recorded in your systems, I was the one who reported it and I got tired of making complaints.
In other words, you know about the illegality of the house not because of your diligence and professionalism but because I was the one who reported it.
You could do nothing about it, because in the end it was our fault for having been swindled and now we were the ones responsible for the illegality of the house. These were the words of the people who attended me at the Municipal Chamber.
We, two foreigners who came from Spain with our savings to buy a house in search of a better country, who bought our house with a real estate agency precisely to make sure that we would not have any problems, it turns out that, in the eyes of the Municipal Chamber, we are guilty of having been swindled.
This, gentlemen of the Municipal Chamber, is called revictimizing the victim.
It should be noted that my boyfriend and I had already bought and sold our properties in Spain before coming to Portugal and this is unthinkable there.
The Municipal Chamber visited my house for the first time on December 7, 2022, to whom I open the doors because I am the first one interested in resolving the situation.
On January 25, 2023, I went to the Municipal Chamber, and they gave me a document saying that the house was illegal, and that illegal works had been done and that it was now my responsibility to resolve the situation of the house.
On March 3, 2023, without calling or warning, three women showed up at my house and, without identifying themselves, said they had to inspect the house.
I let them in even though I had to leave and, due to this unexpected and unannounced visit, I was late for my appointments.
They then sent me an email saying exactly the same thing about the house.
On June 13, 2023, they called me to tell me that they had returned to my house, and I was gone. Again, no notice. I told this person that I am hardly ever at my house in the morning and asked them what they wanted for the third time.
It turns out they want to do a topographical survey for an “audit”.
How is it possible that the City wants to audit something that is supposedly illegal? It will have to be legalized first, isn’t that the procedure?
According to what I was told at the Municipal Chamber, the previous owners had built part of the house illegally, but my architect personally went to the town hall and found cartographic records from 1942 showing that the previous owners did not alter the structure of the house and that what the town hall told me had been built illegally already existed.
In other words, it was the town hall itself that misinformed us and issued documents that were not correct.
My architect then began to draw up the documentation to legalize the house based on these 1942 cartographic records.
From September 2, 2022, until today, living in Porto has been a real nightmare and a waste of time and money filing claims with OSAE, IMPIC, Finanças, the police, paying lawyers, etc.
Added to this is the total incapacity of the Municipal Chamber of Porto.
On September 21, 2023, someone from the Municipal Chamber knocked on the door again, for the fourth time, to carry out an inspection. Once again, without warning, without calling and, above all, without asking permission.
As far as I know, private property is protected by law and, as a citizen, I believe I have rights too.
I am sick and tired of your people showing up at my house without warning. They said they sent letters and so far we haven’t received any.
If a letter is sent, the person receiving it must sign a receipt that you must have and, in addition, the letter must have a phone number or contact number so that I am the only one to communicate my availability to you. I do not understand how officials are sent to waste time when they have not made any contact with the people living in the house.
It should also be noted that this lousy performance not only violates my rights and wastes my time, but also wastes your staff’s time and resources when you yourselves keep saying that you “have no means” when I file complaints.
My boyfriend, who didn’t realize what the person who knocked on the door wanted, called me and I must run out of the shower to see what they wanted in my house again. Logically, we were getting ready to leave for our engagements and we couldn’t waste our time with people from the Municipal Chamber again when I was already paying an architect to do the legalization.
In fact, it should be on record in your systems that my architect met with your officials on July 10, 2023.
If the architect has not yet delivered the documentation, it is not up to us. I have already paid.
I repudiate the persecution and harassment that the Municipal Chamber is doing to us, as well as the violation of my rights.
I would like to know if you prosecute in the same way all those who carry out illegal work in Porto.
I have lived here for a little over a year and every time I go out on the street, I see illegal works. Not to mention all the houses advertised on real estate portals as “pre-1951” that do not need a license and are completely renovated. Even with swimming pools, basements and other additions that are not inspected, nor declared, nor anything.
In fact, on the plan you gave me there are many illegal constructions in red. Why aren’t you just as diligent in pursuing people who have done illegal work?
I have not done any illegal work, but I am solving the problem created by the former owners, since the Municipal Chamber is not capable of sanctioning or fining those who have done the illegal work (I repeat what you yourselves have told me).
It does not seem fair or right to me that we should be persecuted and harassed when we have been the victims of fraud.
The Municipal Chamber, besides being totally incapable of acting and sanctioning the former owners (something very different from the rest of Europe), persecutes and harasses us as if we were criminals.
We are the first ones interested in having the house legalized because we also need all the documentation to start legal proceedings against those who have swindled us.
So, I would appreciate it if you would leave us alone and stop sending your staff every so often to knock on the door without warning. I have already opened the doors of my house twice (the second time without warning) and your employees did all the inspections, photos and measurements they wanted.
If you want to prosecute illegal renovation works, you only have to take a walk around Porto, the city is full of illegal works and illegal houses.”
I did not receive any response to the 4 complaints that Diego and I sent with this text.
But I started to send the same 4 complaints every month just to remind them how incompetent they are.
On the other hand, I have complained ad nauseam about the people who park on the sidewalk on my street, which besides being illegal, cause traffic problems and excessive noise because the bus cannot pass and has to be minutes blowing the horn for people to come out to remove the cars.
I made complaints for months sending photos and videos so that they could see the seriousness of the matter. The response was always to call the municipal police when I saw the cars parked on the sidewalk. I did this several times and the police never came.
Then, seeing the incompetence of the Municipal Chamber and the non-existence of the municipal police, I asked them to put bars on the sidewalk to prevent the cars from going up.
The answer was that it was not possible due to the “accessibility of the sidewalks”.
At that point I left it at that, but since they had already enervated my blood, I decided to file another complaint with photos of the sidewalk:
“Your Excellencies, Municipal Chamber,
I am here to show you the decaying state of the sidewalk on my street.
As I imagine you have recorded in your systems, I have complained on countless occasions about the cars that park on the sidewalk blocking the passage of pedestrians and causing traffic and noise in the street due to the impediment of normal traffic.
Regarding this, the City Council has done nothing.
I have been told to call the Municipal Police as soon as I see the cars parked on the sidewalk and when I have called, no one has come because “they do not have the means”.
I asked for bars to be placed to prevent them from parking on the sidewalk since people do what they want and there is no one who can penalize/fine them.
The response has been that you can’t because of maintaining the “accessibility” of the sidewalk.
Then, I send photos so you can see a sidewalk that besides being very narrow, so it does not fit a wheelchair, is all split and inclined.
This is a danger for the elderly, people with crutches, people in wheelchairs, other disabled people and even non-disabled people who can trip and break something. We should also consider that most of the inhabitants of the area are elderly people with reduced mobility.
Add to this the cars that park on top of it and make the sidewalk much less accessible, so we pedestrians are forced to walk on the street when cars pass by at more than 50km/h 24 hours a day.
So, I hope that this sidewalk will be fixed and made really accessible as it is not accessible now.
In fact, this sidewalk looks nothing like a sidewalk of a European country.
If you put bars on the current sidewalk and supposedly take away accessibility, why not widen the sidewalk and make it truly accessible? There is plenty of room by taking space away from the one-way road and large vehicles would continue to circulate without any problem.
I as a citizen pay taxes and fulfill my obligations, I am even paying for the legalization of a house that was sold to me illegally since the Municipal Chamber, regarding this, does nothing and makes no effort to prevent this type of scams.
So, I am grateful that the corresponding diligences are carried out and the sidewalk is fixed.”
I did not receive any response to this complaint either.
But since they are experts in harassment, I made it my personal goal to denounce everything I saw wrong in Porto, every badly parked car, every illegal construction site, every illegal house, every broken sidewalk, every street with holes.
If they have plenty of means and personnel to harass, I was also going to dedicate time to make complaints.