Hi Everyone,

I have just moved into the village of Alcantarilha just down the road from Amendoeira. I pass the course almost on a daily basis. If anyone wants an update on build progress just drop me a line and I`ll send you some photos, you buy the beer when we eventually meet up !! 3 beers a pop!!

anyone got any ideas when phase 2 will be ready?

have bought a villa on monte mimosa

Hi all,

Olive  I read your message and  I received  new contracts for a 1/4 share in the Oliveira Block of appartments...  I  can see no major changes and have returned them directly to Oceanico without going to a solicitor....  I am going out on the 12th of July for a week  when I will have a site visit and make an appointment to get a solicitor to look after my interests going forward.

Paid over e 44K  in 2006....cant see me getting a key till 2010!!!

Hi,

I've been told that Laranjeira will be finished in December and that Figueria wil  be March 09.  I'm  going down in July on holidas and will try to organise a site visit.  I haven't bought yet but a couple of friends are raving about it. So. i'll have a look and decide then.

Has anyone any advice.

Hi All,

Has anybody got finishing dates yet - has anyone been offered amended contracts because of change of plans by Oceanico??

Olive

Nothing has been posted on here in a while - is that good news or bad? I was on site in January during the Oceanico owners golf event and the whole thing blew me away. There's some difference from the original barren site! The residential side is progressing rapidly, and the golf clubhouse is going to be some monument. Oceanico saying first properties coming on stream next February and while everyone's fretting over property slumps at home, I was in Lisbon last week on business and the flights were jammed both ways. Any other views?

Just returned from weeks holiday during thr first week of September.  Went on a site visit. with Ron Haslam who brought us around the Faldo golf course....it will be some test of golf. It should be playable by March 2008   

.O'Connor course has some work to be done yet cant see it up and running till Sept 2008 !!

They have started constructing the big villas but of major concern to me as a Stepping Stone investor the 2 bed room appartments have been relocated on the project map for the 2nd tIme since Sept 2005??? There seems to have been a major re think on the whole project in late August. Yet nobody could confirm to me whats gone on!! All I was told that I will have a great view of both courses...I wonder will I ever see my appartment..when I asked the question Icould not get a straight answer....maybe 2010??

Overall a lot of construction work going on i.e. roads, bridges,plants,flowers and the new golf clubhouse.

Concerned West of Ireland Golfer/Investor

Hi All

Just back from 2 weeks in Luz and used the hols as excuse to visit the site again... 

Not a great deal to see, as the jeep was not available so views from road only.  I have attached a few pics just to highlight the main changes I saw from a visit 4 months ago... - (I am no David Bailey!)  Notably the road bridges are in, roads with flowers and shrubs in and being constantly watered, a fortune of palm trees have been imported from Egypt and planted on the courses and the lakes are full of water....

Foundations are making good progress on the 2 bed appts behind the second line of course facing villas and there was a lot of activity...

Visited the show appt in Villa Baia and looks top drawer...  Fantastic decor, furniture, quality of fittings, setting, attention to detail etc.. Though each sentence of guide being caveated with "Amendoeira is a step above this.."..!

Just got contracts through, so checking and using the, now, mutual solicitor!

Expected real completion dates for course opening is next spring with various dates being muted on hotel / villas / appts etc...  Mind you, still worth the wait....!

Cheers

Hi Richie

Any useful information from your recent trip to Portugal?

Hi All,

I've just received from Oceanico and attached to this website some photo's of the current state of play regarding the developing of the Amendoeira Golf Resort.

Hi from Ireland,

Visited site last week, foundations are now in on quite a few properties. 3 bed villas that started at 625k (euros) are now 950k!. Apartments (2 bed) now 500k. Prestige course-front four bed villas now 2m.

The golf courses are really taking shape. The general view in the industry is that it's going to be a real blue chip development, one of the elite. I'm told green fees will be around 130 euros.

Still unsure on the Vilamoura courses option. 15k for five more courses is great value if your are going to be using them a lot. Has anyone anything concrete on rental potential for apartments/villas? They're talking about the first properties coming on stream in January 2009.

Hi All,

Have been offered addition of 5 courses for 10,000.  We have quarter share, doesnt seem too good a deal when Richie is getting each apartment for 15,000.  Anyone else considering this addition to their portfolio?

Olove

Richie, 

Enjoy the trip.  You must intend spending a lot of time in portugal to justify adding the others courses when there are two on your door step.  Good luck. 

FYI.  I spoke with one of the Oceanico reps recently and they said they had struck a deal with someone to have a reserved beach front area plus beach restaurant availible to residents of Amendoeira.  The rep said it was up and running and was "very, very nice".  I might be worth a look see. 

Paul

Hi all

We are heading to Portugal for 2 weeks on the 13th.

We have arranged for a site visit, so looking forward to it.

I will email on any photos if required.

Also if you want me to ask any informal question I will be happy to assist.

I hear that they are close to signing a deal fo the Hotel, will check this out!!

Also I will be going ahead with adding the 5 other new golf courses to the my apatments as it will make this easier to move on when the time comes.

The figure will be €15,000 approx for each apartment. This then gives you membership to 7 golf courses in total!!

Talk to you soon

Richie

Hi i have played on the new course at silves very nice not the other one there building

Regards

Lawrence

Hi Paul,

We will be there end of July so might get so photos then.  Meanwhile read somewhere that Villas are Phase one! 

Olive

Olive, 

No information for you unfortunatly.  I was hoping to travel to Portugal this August and view progress then, access permitting.  If I do go, I will be happy to give an update then and share any photo's / video clip of the development (not just my apartment!). 

Paid my reservation deposit some two months back now and no sign of any agreements / contracts to review, not unduly concerned. 

Paul

Rathfarnham

Hello, 

Has anyone been near Silves lately.  Has any construction started on apartments/villas yet.  Golf Courses apparently going well.

Olive

Honda and Olive, 

Thanks for your advice and information, much appreciated. 

Take care.

Paul

Hi Fellow Irish People,

We also used Maria Jose to complete our contracts on quarter share of Apartment.  We are so used to frantic closures here that it is fasanating to be involved with the Portuguese version! We are signed and sealed now and all seems to be fine.  Would not have completed without some sort of legal advice just for piece of mind.(No need to travell over to meet her, I spoke at length to her over the phone and she was very helpful and informative.)

Has anyone used the Leisuretime passport - I feel that it is not that worthwhile unless you are travelling off-peak to somewhere uninteresting!!

Olive

Hi Paul,

I think it is advisable to go through a solicitor considering the solicitor we used in Portugal at the time was only charging €750 + vat for her services I think it is well worthwhile using a solicitor for peace of mind. We have signed off on contracts for the 1/4 Share of a Villa. 

The contact details for the solicitor we are using in Portugal is. Name: Maria Jose V.L. Dias, Contact Telephone Number: 00351 282 081 046 & 00351 963 937 588, Fax: 00351 282 088 674 Email Address: mjosedias@mjdsolicitor.com. If you do decide to use her just be aware when you send her emails she isn’t the quickest to reply back but I’d say that seems to be the way of life in Portugal.

When we went over on the Inspection trip in April 2006 she was one of the solicitor's that did a lot of business with Oceanico. She isn't representing Oceanico but she does represent prospective buyers of property with Oceanico. During the Inspection trip in April 2006 we met up with her for 2 hours and she seems to have an excellent knowledge of purchasing properties in Portugal. Her charge for processing the purchase of a 1/4 share of a villa in Amendoeira Golf Resort was €750 (Euro), which is very reasonable. From our experience if you use a solicitor from Ireland involved in representing people purchasing overseas properties they are charging up to 5 times what we are paying the solicitor in Portugal.

The reason why the solicitor in Portugal seems so reasonable I think is that she is dealing with a lot of clients purchasing property through Oceanico and obviously once she does the ground work for one property purchase the frame work for the rest is then in place. If you decide to go through her what then happens is you get a copy of the contract of the property and she also gets the contract and you give her the authority to sign the contract on your behalf, it saves the hassle of the contracts going back and forth from Oceanico to you if any changes need to be made. Just to let you know before we started using this solicitor we had received 3 sets of contracts from Oceanico as there was a lot of errors on the first two contracts. The first contract we received was for a ¼ share of an Apartment when in actual fact it was a ¼ share of a villa we had purchased so by the time we sent back the 3^rd set of contracts to Oceanico we were a bit browned off. I have just copied and pasted a lot of this information from one of the other pages on this Forum as I‘ve given this information to other people before, so if you have time it is well worth reading all the information on this Forum. By the way we are also living in Ireland.

Friends, 

Just arrived back from a visit to Amendoeira.  Golf course taking shape, but not a blade of grass to be seen yet.  Hard to envisage it being ready to play next year.  Work appears to have only just started on the curbing for the road way from the rear of the development to the site office, the rest was just fields and mud.

Have have just parted with a reservation deposit for one of the two bedroom apartments under the stepping stone option (one quarter membership). 

Oceanic indicated that a solicitor would not be necessary given the structure of the stepping stone arrangement.  I am not inclinded to agree.  I would welcome any views / expereinces on this matter.  Have owners opted for local representation or representation from their home domicile (or both). I live in Ireland. 

Thx. 

Paul

Hi Olive

Happy New Year to everyone....

Sorry we have not been back with an update.   Trip was worthwhile, we were taken round some of the site on a land rover to give us an inidication of where everything was being laid out, i.e. the apartments, hotel, golf courses etc.   As you will have seen from the photographs a lot of the ground works have taken place for the layout of the courses, layout of tees, greens and fairways are visible.   The ground was very wet as they had had a lot of rain in October and November which had made it difficult for them to work, but they still seem to be making good progress, although they were a few weeks behind schedule.

We are now waiting for a few minor points to be answered on the contract and the due diligence forms before we sign  All seems to have gone quiet with Oceanico over the last few weeks presumably because of the Christmas and New Year period.

We will not be returning until September, so updates throughout the Spring / Summer welcome by anyone visiting.

Hi Bennetts,

Anything to report from your trip in December

Olive

Hi Greenhills,

Thanks for sharing photos. We have not been over since July so we can see a hugh change.  Reassuring now that we have posted cheque!!!!!!!!!!!!

Olive

Thanks Honda and everyone for all your comments.   We will report back with any progress when we return from the Algarve at the end of next week.

Hi Greenhills,

We requested it when we were submitting the signed contracts a couple of weeks ago. I wouldn't be too confident in getting it but if you don't ask you won't get and as you said if Oceanico go bust in the middle of the project the comfort letter won't be worth the paper it's written on.

Regarding the risk element when you get involved with any investment project you have to be prepared that things can go wrong as well but having analysed alot of developments over the last 18 mths I think Amendoeira Golf  Resort looks the best of them and is worth the risk if there is any in my opinion.

Hi Olive,

No it doesn't issue automatically and eventhough we have requested one there is no guarantee that they will accommodate us. We haven't heard anything since we requested the comfort letter.

Hi Olive,

A comfort letter is a letter from the bank acknowledging that they have received your money and that the bank is also well financed to fund the relevant project.

A Banking Comfort Letter is a document provided by the financial instituion funding the project proving the availability of the funds or a credit line to the buyer.

Below is an explanation of what a Comfort letter is.

'We, the undersigned Bank Officers, hereby confirm with full responsibility that the amount of €__________________ (Euro_________________) is reserved in this bank at the request of (buyer's name)__________________ for the finalization of contract for the purchase of (property)______________________________________.

These funds are available for the purchase of the above indentified property. In this regard the funds can be converted into a Fully transferrable and callable Letter of Credit with a Bank Payment Guarantee. In issuing this statement, the bank recognizes their liability in accordance with the terms of the contract should it proceed'.

Hi Honda,

We have signed contracts and are in the process of returning them.  Had a few minor questions for Oceanico and they rang me at weekend with reply.  Apparently they are very happy with progress of Amendoeira.  Lakes on Golf Course have been lined and they hope to complete infrastructure by christmas. Apparently,  planning for builing will only become valid when roads, sewers, water etc have been put in place! But you are right, looking at Vila Baia - it is still not open - wont be giving it much thought for a while.

What is  the "comfort Letter" - I assume it is confirmation that your deposit has been received ...

Olive

Hi Bennetts,

We have completed the signing of the contracts and we are going to take a back seat in the process now for the next year. We are confident that our solicitor in Portugal carried out all the relevant due diligence checks.

Considering the solicitor in Portugal is only charging €750 + vat for her services I think it is worthwhile using her or any solicitor for peace of mind. Instead of sending the contracts back and forth from us to Oceanico we gave the solicitor authority to sign the contracts on our behalf. She then sent us a copy of the relevant contracts signed. The reason we decided to do this was we were getting tired of sending corrections of the contracts back and forth to Oceanico. Of course it is still important for you to check the contracts even if you are giving the authority to a solicitor to sign them on your behalf. The only thing we are waiting on from the solicitor now is the comfort letter from the relevant Bank or Oceanico regarding the 30% deposit already paid by us.

Looking forward to hearing how your Inspection trip goes. If Oceanico are providing the accommodation for your Inspection trip I don't think you will be disappointed. When we were over on the Inspection trip they put us up in a 4 star development called Estrela da Luz and everything about it was excellent. Best of luck

Honda

We are considering purchasing a quartershare on the Oliveira phase and will be visiting the Amendoiera site in a few weeks.  We have received our first set of contracts (at first glance with a number of errors).  Has anything else come to light which is worrying or have you now signed contracts?    We are considering getting in touch with your lawyer to act for us.   Do you still feel it has been worthwhile using a lawyer for the quartershare purchase? Would be grateful for any news / any further views you have. 

Many thanks.

Hi All,

We have received contracts and after a quick read through it would appear that we can only let out the apartment through Amendoeira (and pay percentage accordingly) I was of the impression that we could rent the apartment  ourselves through something like "Owners Direct".  Also there was a mention that max capacity is 4!(2 Bed Apartment)  Anyone  any light to throw on these matters???

Olive

Hi Goodtimes

I have not received any contracts yet, but I have been updated by Bridget of Amendoeira who said the completion would be 2008.

Regards

Richie

Just out of interest has anyone received their promissory contract yet and also does anyone know when phase one of the development is due to be completed? I Have just returned from a visit to the site and must admit I am extremely pleased with the progress and layout of the golf course.

Hi Greenhills,

No there is nothing major to watch out for other than alot of simple errors on the contract. The contract that was sent to us was the specifications for an apartment instead of a villa. Once that was sorted everything else was ok. At the moment we are waiting for the solicitor to sign off on the contracts. Once that is completed we will be paying the balance of the 30% due. The process should be straight forward once you get your solicitor to do all the relevant due diligence checks.

Hi all

Richie here, My wife and I first visited Amendoeira in November 2005.

The place was a complete wash out at the time, as it was raining for the first time in 18months!!

This year we spent 10days holidays in the Vilamora area. I played on two courses and I have to say that it was the most relaxing place we were ina long time. Everything was excellent. If Amendoeira is going to be what it says on the package then I think we will be happy.

We decided that there was huge potential at the resort and put a deposite on 3 x 3bed aparts in the Figueira block. Each was €495,000 including golf title. Last week I visited the Kinsley Hotel in Cork to see what was the update, without informing them what we had bought. The prices for the same apartments as us are now selling for €595,000 incl golf title.

I expect that we will be closing contracts in 2008 at the earliest

Any further news??

Regards to all