Municipal approvals in Lisbon can stall a development by twelve months or more. Portugal Property navigated ours to completion in under six — a timeline our own legal counsel in Zurich called exceptional for a mixed-use project of this scale.
They understand both the regulatory architecture and the commercial pressure behind every deadline. That combination is rare — most firms have one without the other.
Ricardo da Silva, Managing Partner
The Institutional Challenge
Da Silva Capital manages a diversified southern-European portfolio from Geneva. When we identified a nine-unit residential conversion opportunity in Chiado, we knew the acquisition due diligence would be straightforward — our challenge was the post-acquisition execution layer. Portuguese planning law, heritage conservation zones, and the Lisbon Camara’s approval workflow require local expertise that cannot be replicated remotely or improvised by a generalist law firm.
Portugal Property embedded an urban planning specialist and a structural engineer into our project team before we had even completed the purchase. By the time deeds were signed, preliminary design submissions were already in the municipal pipeline. That overlap alone saved us an estimated four months.
From Permits to Pre-Sales
Once construction began, Portugal Property’s project management team coordinated weekly between our Zurich office and the Lisbon site. Budget reporting followed the format we use across all our European developments, which meant our investment committee could assess this project alongside assets in Milan and Barcelona without translation or reformatting.
- Municipal licencing secured in under six months
- Nine residential units delivered within budget tolerance
- Pre-sale advisory coordinated with our disposal team in parallel
- Single point of reporting from acquisition through to handover
We have since engaged Portugal Property for a second development in Porto. The relationship has moved from service provider to strategic partner — they understand our risk appetite, our reporting cadence, and our standards. For any institutional investor entering the Portuguese market, that continuity is worth more than any individual fee saving.