If you’re buying or selling a property in Cabo Verde, first of all, congratulations, and we hope you’ll home and talked to us at Casa Verde for free, friendly and expert advice.
Secondly, buckle in, because inevitably there are processes and terms involved that aren’t just in a different language, they’re in acronyms and jargon that baffle us all. Don’t worry, here’s the Casa Verde concise dictionary of property terms you’ll come across when selling or buying any kind of property or land in Cape Verde.
NIFs: a NIF is one of the first things you need to get yourself if you’re even considering putting in an offer on property or land in Sal, Boa Vista or indeed any of the islands of the Cabo Verdean archipelago. NIF is short for Numero de Identificacao Fiscal, and it is your national insurance number, essentially. Even if you have a NIF for Spain or Portugal, doesn’t matter – you need a separate NIF here, too. Everyone needs a NIF to buy or sell property in Cape Verde, simple as. Not only for real estate, you need a NIF to open a bank account, pay your electricity bill, get WiFi … pretty much anything!
Good news: getting a NIF is simple, straightforward and free. Casa Verde provides this service free of charge to its clients. NB hold on to the original of your NIF and make a lot of paper copies of it. You’ll need it more often than you think.
NIP: Just as every tax payer has their NIF, so every property has a NIP. It’s the number by which the government and local council, your lawyer, the Notary, EVERYONE uses to pinpoint your exact property. Boy oh boy, it has a lot of 00000s. It’s actually a really useful thing: you may be buying a property in an apartment block or condominium community with 40 other apartments, so only the NIP can precisely identify which is YOUR apartment. To find your NIP If you’re already a homeowner, look on your Deeds to the property or the CIP. Which leads us neatly to …
CIP – or Certidao de Identificacao Predial – this is a 2-3 page document is held by the Cabo Verdean equivalent of the land registry. It is unique to each property and shows a lot of important things about the apartment, house, land or villa you’re selling in Cabo Verde, and is vital for your lawyers and estate agents to do their jobs. It’s a really useful thing to look at as a potential buyer, too. It shows who the property belongs to (everyone named on the deeds), its official address, how much the government thinks it’s worth (see Valor Patrimonial, below) and taxes it at, a plan of the location/property and – importantly – if there is any debt or mortgage on it. Having all this information together on one form that can be pretty easily obtained from the local registry office is a pretty good idea really that other countries could learn from! It does take up to 10 days to get one however, so, sellers, as soon as you think of putting your property on the market, pop into the local Notary / Registry and request it, please.
Valor Patrimonial – this is the registered value of any apartment, villa, house or piece of land you may be looking to buy in Cape Verde. It is listed at the bottom of page 1 of the CIP, see above. Why is that important? Taxes, taxes, taxes! Yes, the amount of council tax you pay annually (see IUP, below) and the sales tax you pay when buying or selling (IUP of Transmission) depends upon what the local council or Camara Municipal thinks your property is worth. The higher the Valor Patrimonial, the higher your costs of buying or selling property in Cabo Verde. The bad news? A lot of properties were assigned their Valor Patrimonial off plan or in the heady days of major construction, the frenzy of buying that was around 2006 to 2007 in Cabo Verde; Sal in particular. This was Cape Verde before the worldwide economic crash of 2008 and long before Covid-19 took a massive chunk out of property prices not just on the islands, but across the world. So, the Valor Patrimonial may be MUCH higher than the price an apartment, house of villa sells for now, yet the owners still pay their taxes on the original figure. Worst, the sales tax or stamp duty (see IUP of Transmission) payable on the sale or purchase of a property in Cabo Verde is based on the Valor Patrimonial: 1.5% of THAT to pay for buyers; 1% for sellers. Owners? Don’t worry. You can reduce your IUP and sales taxes for under 200 Euros by getting your property officially revalued. Contact Casa Verde to find out how.
IUP: pronounced EE-oop, this is the annual council tax you need to pay the Camara Municipal once you own a property in Cabo Verde. A lot of people forget about it, which is very unwise as the government keeps very clear records of it and it must be paid fully up to date – by law – before you can sell your property in Cape Verde. So, please don’t come on holiday to Sal or Boa Vista, buy a cheap apartment then go home and forget about it, because the debt and interest will be creeping up every year and the proceeds of the sale of your property may be dramatically depleted by your lawyers having to, legally, repay it all before the deeds are signed over to someone else and before you get the proceeds of your sale. IUP can now, finally and huzzah, be paid electronically by direct debit, saving you trekking between the Camara Municipal (then queueing) and the bank (then queueing) then back to the Camara Municipal
(more queueing). Casa Verde, some lawyers and property managers can help you negotiate your way around the Camara Municipal and IUPs in general, for a small fee.
IUP of transmission: yup, there’s another IUP and it’s a big one! This is a sales tax, like stamp duty, paid by both buyers AND sellers of property in Cabo Verde. The sellers pay 1% and the buyers pay 1.5% of the agreed sales price OR Valor Patrimonial, whichever is higher. See above. Now you know why Valor Patrimonial is so important and why it’s a good idea to get your property revalued.
CPCV: ANOTHER joyous acronym, and the CV has nothing to do with Cabo Verde. It stands for Contrato-Promessa de Compra e Venda, or Promissory Contract of Purchase and Sale. If you’ve got to the stage of talking about one of these, congratulations – you’re on your way to owning a property in Cabo Verde. This is something that the sellers’ lawyers prepare. The CPCV is not just exchanged with the buyers’ lawyers, with both parties quibbling, amending, then finally agreeing, buyers and sellers signing, but they take it to the Notary who can give it the thumbs up or dismiss it. The Notary (and there are only two on the island of Sal) is a government official. They have the power to do their own searches and raise any questions and concerns about the sale, or to reject it. They’re ON YOUR SIDE. This extra check means no dirty tricks, no inheriting debts, no-one selling a property they’re not entitled to sell or selling something under the wrong name. Phew.
So, you’ve got your NIPs, NIFs, CIPs, IUPs all straight in your mind?! Come across any other bemusing acronyms in the process of selling or buying property in Cape Verde? Just let us know and we’ll try to decipher them.
Want to hear more about the process of buying or selling land or property in Cabo Verde? Interested to have a no-obligation chat about how we can help? Just get in touch with us
You can read our FAQs on selling property in Cabo Verde by clicking here or, if you’re a potential buyer and want to see what it entails to buy property in Cabo Verde, just click here
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