⚠ Private pools · No national safety mandate

Nobody requires a barrier, an alarm, or a cover

Portugal has no equivalent to France's loi piscine. Whatever safety provision a private pool has is whatever the previous owner chose to install, which is often nothing.

🇫🇷 France

loi piscine (loi n.º 2003-9)

✅Every private in-ground pool must have a safety device

One of: barrier, alarm, cover, or shelter

🇵🇹 Portugal

No national private-pool safety law

❌No mandatory barrier, alarm, or cover

The only barrier is the one the buyer installs

The human cost is not abstract. Drowning-prevention bodies including APSI, and emergency data from INEM, identify pools as a primary location for child drowning. A pool inspection records what safety provision exists, so the buyer knows what is missing before completion, not after.

Sources: France loi piscine (loi n.º 2003-9); APSI & INEM drowning-prevention data. The "more than half of pools are illegal" claim circulating online is an industry estimate (Fórum da Casa), not an official statistic. · InspectOS