For an heir living in the US, Canada or the UK, the real danger of Portugal's new inheritance law is not the sale itself — it is finding out too late. Procedural steps are notified through citations and publications made in Portugal, and the reaction windows are short.
The key moments and their windows
- Triggering by a co-heir: opens the 6-month amicable window (+2) — the best moment to negotiate, buy out or sell at market price;
- Opposition: on the order of ~30 days after notice/publication (exact figures to be set by the implementing decrees);
- Electronic auction: announced on the e-leilões platform;
- Family buy-back (remição): a window of just days to keep the property at the final price.
Why the emigrant heir is structurally disadvantaged
If your address on file with the Portuguese tax office or land registry dates from your parents' era — the norm after decades abroad — notifications are made by public notice. Nobody in New Bedford reads Portugal's official gazette. The clock runs anyway. By the time the family hears about it, the house is already at auction.
What to do now (before the law takes effect)
- Update your address with the Portuguese tax office and registry;
- Assemble the estate documents (heirs' deed, registry certificate, tax record);
- Talk to your co-heirs — the amicable window rewards whoever arrives prepared;
- Set up monitoring of Portugal's official publications.
Watching Portugal without living there
HERDA's Vigia service monitors Citius, e-leilões and the official gazette for your estate and alerts you by email in English — so no Portuguese deadline slips past you across the Atlantic.