InspectOS · Document verification
Three institutions describe the same property and none of them guarantees the others. Run the comparisons in this order, before the promissory contract binds the deposit.
Licença de utilização vs Caderneta Predial Urbana
Compare the authorised use, the number of autonomous fractions and the described layout. A change of use needs its own municipal authorisation, however long ago it happened.
What surfaces here: commercial space living as housing, one licensed dwelling now split into several, a layout that no longer matches.
Caderneta Predial vs Certidão Permanente
Two separate databases, held by the Autoridade Tributária and the Conservatória do Registo Predial. Read description, boundaries and registered area against each other. The certificate carries six months of validity and costs €15 online or €20 in person.
What surfaces here: unregistered charges and mortgages, boundary descriptions that disagree, area figures that diverge.
Recorded area vs measured area
Take both area figures to the viewing and measure. Extra floor space that appears in concrete and not on paper is the signature of a work that was never authorised.
What surfaces here: enclosed balconies, converted garages, roof rooms, rear extensions.
These three comparisons show whether the papers agree. They do not show whether a removed wall was load-bearing, whether an enclosed terrace drains into the flat below, or whether an extension sits on adequate foundations. That reading is technical.
A certified engineer compares the licence, the registry and the tax record against measured reality on site, and records the difference in a dated technical report.